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1 



A THEORY 



OF 



EQUALITY; 

4 



OK; 
I i 



THE WAY TO MAKE 



EVERT 



MAN ACT HONESTLY, 



BY JOHN CAMPBELL. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PUBLISHED BY JOHN B. PERKY, 

NO. 198 MARKET STREET. 
NEW YORK.-NAFIS AND CORNISH. 

i84a 






Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the 
year 1848, by 

JOHN CAMPBELL, 

itf'the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the 
Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 



J. Van Court, Printer, Quarry street, 



4 r* 



DEDICATION. 



TO MESSRS. LAMARTINE, ARAGO, ARMALD MARAST 

MARE, GARNIER PAGE, DUPONT DE L'EURE, 

CARNOT, CRIMEUX, ALBERT, LE DRU 

ROLLIN, LOUIS BLANC, 

And the other Members of the Provisional Government of the 
French Republic. 

Gentlemen : 

I dedicate this essay of mine to you, impressed 
as I am with the profoundest respect for your great 
efforts in the cause of bleeding, mangled, torn 
humanity. The noble position assumed by the great 
French nation, makes my heart beat with the most 
joyful emotions, while the fame of its leaders are as 
extended as civilization, and will be as lasting as 
eternity, and will be remembered when the names of 
emperors, kings, and despots, are forgotten. 

Gentlemen, your Revolution of 1789, did not take 
place in vain ; the heroic and patriotic blood shed by 
your oppressors, was not spilled for nothing. — Xlie, 
seeds then sown, are now beginning to ripen. 

Gentlemen, upon your wisdom depends tjie fate of 
Europe ; upon your shoulders rests the fate of civi- 
lized man, to the latest moment of recorded time. 
Already, by the Burgeosie press, in this country, are 
your prudence and capabilities questioned ; already 
are you denominated enthusiasts and theorists ; 
already does the sting of monopoly exhibit itself 
against your grand and perilous Revolution. Already 

(iu) 



IV DEDICATION. 

the base aristocracy of money, are at their infamous 
denunciations of you and your sublime endeavors to 
elevate the proletarians ! 

Gentlemen, this theory of mine, I had almost ready 
from the stereotyper, when the glorious news reached 
the United States, that you had placed yourselves at 
the head of the French people. I at once perceived 
how you intended to direct the Revolution : I foresaw 
that the base press and its baser employers, all over 
the world, would denounce you ! I dreaded not your 
virtue, patriotism, or humanity; but I do dread this 
terrible power ! However, be it your care, to strictly 
watch over, your gigantic undertaking, and see that 
bad men, and bad measures, be kept from your 
councils ! The world-wide reputations of all, and 
each of you, are dear to me— inexpressibly so; and 
if in the midst of such immense transactions, great 
in amount and greater in their consequences, you will 
have time to devote an hour to the perusal of this 
essay ; if you will not glean any original ideas from 
it, you will, at all events, learn that the holy doc- 
trines of which you are the national expounders, 
have thousands of advocates in the United States, 
who are exceedingly delighted at the success of your 
truly splendid Revolution ! 

Wishing you every success in the sacred cause, in 
which you are embarked, as well as a speedy and 
glorious termination to the struggles of the Reformers 
of Germany, the Chartists of Great Britain, the Re- 
pealers of Ireland, and the friends of human equality 
and fraternization, all over the globe, I subscribe my- 
self your devoted admirer, and friend, 

JOHN CAMPBELL. 

Philadelphia , April 1848. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 
Chapter I. — The Social Contract — Present Condition 
of Man — Different Degrees of Progres- 
sion, -------3 

Chapter II. — On Government, ----- 7 

Chapter III. — On Laws, - - - - - -11 

Chapter IV. — On Parties, - K - - - - - 14 

Chapter V. — Right of Opinion, - - - - - 18 

Chapter VI. — Education, - * - ■ • - - 20 

Chapter VII. — Commerce, ----- 23 

Chapter VIII.— Tariffs, 28 

Chapter IX. — Banking, - - - - - 33 

Chapter X. — Machinery, - - - . -' - 39 

Chapter XI. — Trades Unions, ----- 43 

Chapter XII. — Capital and Labor, - - • - 46 

Chapter XIII. — Capital and Labor, (continued,) - - 53 

Chapter XIV. — Exchanges, - - - - - 59 

Chapter XV. — Exchanges, (continued,) - - - 67 

Chapter XVI. — Population and Resources of the United 

States, 73 

Chapter XVII* — Population and Resources of the 

United States, (continued,) - - 79 

Chapter XVIII. — Population and Resources of the 

United States, (continued,( - - 83 

Chapter XIX. — Landlordism, - - - - - 87 

Chapter XX. — Landlordism, (continued,) - - - 94 

Chapter XXI. — Landlordism, (continued,) - - - 103 

Chapter XXII.— Money, - - - - - -106 

Chapter XXIII. — Equal Exchanges, - - - - 111 

Chapter XXIV. — Equal Exchanges, (continued,) - 117 

Chapter XXV. — General Reflections, - - - 122 
. 5 1* 



EQUALITY, &c. 



CHAPTER 1. 



THE SOCIAL CONTRACT PRESENT CONDITION OF 

MAN — DIFFERENT DEGREES OF PROGRESSION. 

Wherever I look upon man, I behold him in very 
different conditions ; one class is educated, another is 
neglected ; one man is extremely rich, another is in 
the greatest destitution. I am, therefore, induced to 
inquire into the causes of these great inequalities 
among men. I ask, is the present the natural condi- 
tion of man ? I ask, is mother Nature thus unjust ? 
I cast my vision back into the past, and I know that, 
collectively, the race has progressed. I know that 
the producers in the United States possess more phy- 
sical comforts than the producers of any country now 
do or ever did. But even here there is too much in- 
equality not to institute a rigid inquiry into its causes. 
The present age is the commercial one of the world. 
The merchant princes of the day, rule in every coun- 
try. The commercial power of Great Britain, main- 
tains the supremacy of the privileged orders, and 
enslaves the masses at home and in her foreign pos- 
sessions. The stock jobbers of the Bourse, at Paris, 
are the pillars upon which the throne of Louis Phil- 
lipe rests. The mercantile interests of America, are 



4 EQUALITY. 

forging chains for the limbs of her industrious citi- 
zens. The commercial gradually superseded the 
feudal system. The age of feudalism was the age 
of the sword. The most powerful chieftain kept his 
weaker neighbors in terror or subjection. Might was 
then the standard by which things were measured. 
The Barons selected one of their own order, and 
made him king. The productions of industry were 
then obtained by force instead of, as they are now, by 
cunning. 

Thus far man could do no better, because he is 
born ignorant. The latter is an axiom. In travel- 
ling beyond the feudal I arrive at the patriarchal 
state, when men were nomads — beyond that period I 
am unable to penetrate. Man, in a natural state, 
possesses unlimited freedom, except where nature 
herself circumscribes the limits ; he roams abroad ; 
he gathers roots or fruits for his subsistence, or else 
he catches fish or wild animals, and converts their 
bodies into food, and their skins into clothing ; he is 
exposed to the inclemency of the seasons, he builds 
a house to shelter himself. " Necessity, the mother 
of invention," still urges him onward ; he is attacked 
by other men, or by wild beasts, and he unites with 
his kind ; hence the origin of society either to resist 
aggression or to aggress. The question, therefore, to 
be solved is — " to find that form of association which 
shall protect and defend with the whole force of the 
community, the person and the property of each in- 
dividual, and in which each person, by uniting him- 
self with the rest, shall, nevertheless, be obedient only 
to himself, and remain fully at liberty as before." — 
Rousseau. Upon this will hinge the whole of my ar- 
guments. 

I lay it down as an incontrovertible axiom, that 



EQUALITY. 5 

when men enter into the bonds of society, no member 
of the body politic can be endowed with any privilege, 
because the moment such shall be the fact, the social 
contract is broken, and each member is then absolved 
from the duties he engaged to fulfil. The first clause 
in the original agreement of the pact is this — " We, 
the contracting parties, do jointly and severally, sub- 
mit our persons and abilities to the supreme direction 
of the general will of all, and in a collective body 
receive each member into that body, as an indivisible 
part of the whole." — Rousseau. It is, therefore, evi- 
dent that man, in abandoning a state of nature for a 
state of civilization, his motives are to better his con- 
dition. Pleasure and pain are the two great prin- 
ciples which govern man in all his actions. He 
enters society under the impression that society will 
have no favorites ; that there cannot be privileges for 
one man or for one class in particular, and the 
moment that he perceives any thing of the kind, he 
knows that the original contract is violated, and he is 
then at liberty to fall back upon his natural right, in 
preference to trusting to the Punic faith of civilization. 
In thus reverting to first principles, or to the elements 
of society, I have to discard every kind of prejudice, 
and to reason of man as I find him ; for, as the poet 
says — " we can only reason but from what we know." 
"The error of those who reason by precedents drawn 
from antiquity respecting the rights of man, is that 
they do not go far enough into antiquity. They do 
not go the whole way : they stop at some of the in- 
termediate stages of an hundred or a thousand years, 
and produce what was then done as a rule for the 
present day. This is no authority at all. If we 
travel still further into antiquity, we shall find a 
directly contrary opinion and practice prevailing, and 



6 EQUALITY. 

if antiquity is to be authority, a thousand such au- 
thorities may be produced contradicting each other ; 
but if we proceed on, we shall gradually come out 
right; we shall come to the time when man came from 
the hand of his Maker. What was he then ? man, 
man, was his high and only title, and a higher can- 
not be given him. 

" We have now arrived at the origin of man, and at 
the origin of his rights. As to the manner in which 
the world has been governed, from that day to this, 
is no further concern of ours than to make a proper 
use of the errors or the improvements which the 
history of it presents. Those who lived one hun- 
dred or one thousand years ago, were the moderns, 
as we are now. They had their ancients, and those 
ancients had others, and we shall be ancients in our 
turn. If the mere name of antiquity is to govern in 
the affairs of life, the people who are to live one hun- 
dred or one thousand years hence, may as well take 
us for a precedent as we make a precedent of those 
who lived one hundred or one thousand years ago. 
The fact is, that portions of antiquity, by proving 
every thing, establish nothing ! It is authority 
against authority, all the way, till we come to the Di- 
vine origin of man, and the rights of man at the crea- 
tion. Here our inquiries find a resting place, and our 
reason finds a home. If a dispute about the rights of 
man had arisen at the distance of one hundred years 
from the creation, it is to this source of authority they 
must have referred, and it is to the same source of 
authority that we must refer." — Paine. It is, there- 
fore, clear that no authority can be binding on man, 
when his rights are invaded, and that when this in- 
fringement takes place, he possesses the undoubted 
right to fall back upon the first of all laws, self-pro- 






EQUALITY. 7 

servation. Moreover, when society neglects or re- 
fuses to carry into operation its primary objects by 
not preserving to each of its members all his rights, 
it commits social suicide ; for it hath been wisely ob- 
served, "that a wrong inflicted on a single individual, 
is an insult to the whole community." The Declara^ 
tion of Independence expressly states that, " all men 
are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among 
which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 
When it is taken into consideration that it was a viola- 
tion of the rights of man, which produced that sublime 
Declaration, I am justified in asserting that the least 
infringement of those rights is an actual dissolution 
of the social contract. I, therefore, consider that 
man originally entered society for his better conser- 
vation, and that he sacrificed his natural liberty con- 
ditionally, for the protection which society afforded 
him, but that whenever he sees privileges conferred 
upon a favored few, he will return to his natural 
rights, and reform a new state of society, his guides 
being knowledge and prudence. 

The inference to be deduced from this chapter is, 
that each individual has the right to think as he 
chooses, to speak as he chooses, and to act as he 
chooses, upon the express understanding, that no per- 
son is injured by his conduct. 



CHAPTER II. 

ON GOVERNMENT. 

An examination into governments, their nature and 
their functions, appears to be necessary before I pro- 






8 * EQUALITY. 

ceed any further in this inquiry. TJjere hav^ been, 
and are various forms of government. The first I 
will mention, is the democratic or popular form — 
where every male adult possesses a voice in it. 
The second is the aristocratic, where the wealthy 
^land owners rule the country. The third is the 
oligarchic, where the government is in the hands of a 
very few persons. The fourth is the monarchical, or 
autocratic, or despotic. Athens, in the days of her 
greatness, represents the- first. Poland, before her 
partition, the second. Venice, under the Doge and 
Council of Ten, the third ; and Russia, at the present 
day, the fourth. These various forms of government 
run into each other, and become more or less modi- 
fied. Under the last three forms, the people are 
always kept in ignorance, because it is only by re- 
taining the people in ignorance, that they can be kept 
enslaved. When men associated together at first, it is 
natural to suppose that the little State was democratic; 
but as the State enlarged its boundaries, or increased 
its population, the more crafty conspired together to 
subjugate the bulk of the citizens. This constitutes 
usurpation and tyranny. 

It will now be seen, that if every member of so- 
ciety were honest and virtuous, there would be no 
need of government at all. Paine says, " Society is 
produced by our wants, and government by our wick- 
edness ; the former promotes our happiness positively, 
the latter negatively ; the one by uniting our affec- 
tions, the other by restraining our vices ; the one en- 
courages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. 
The first is a patron, the last is a punisher. Society, 
in every state, is a blessing, but government, even in 
its best state, is a necessary evil — in its worst state, 
an' intolerable one." A wise people, therefore, who 



EQUALITY. 9 

cannot transact their affairs in their own persons, 
as the Athenians- did, will confer no powers on the 
government conflicting with the original pact or cove- 
nant. Where government is transacted by delega- 
tion, the chances are much more favorable for bribery 
and corruption, and likewise for usurpation, than where 
all the affairs are managed at the primary assemblies. 
" Knowledge is power ;" thus it has always happened 
wherever the people were ignorant, there have their 
rights been stolen away. 

Government may be divided into two separate de- 
partments — the legislative and administrative. The 
legislative branch has simply to make laws in strict 
accordance with the constitution or original pact, and 
cannot, by any pretext whatever, act otherwise ; the 
moment it does, it is guilty of the highest crime, to 
wit, treason ; and then it should be attainted, and the 
punishment follow the offence as certain as the perpe- 
tration of the crime. The majority of wills, or ballots, 
form the government in a democracy, from genera- 
tion to generation, but no further; the legislature can- 
not, from the very nature of the rights of man, make 
any laws, but in accordance with the general will, 
and cannot, therefore, make laws for generations not 
born ! Paine thus speaks : " Every generation and 
age is and must, as a matter of right, be as free to 
act for itself, in all cases, as the age and generation 
that preceded it. The vanity and presumption of 
governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous 
and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property 
in man, neither has one generation a property in the 
generations that are to follow." The administrative 
department has simply to see the laws impartially 
obeyed. In every instance, care should be taken to 
keep the legislative and administrative departments 

2 



10 EQUALITY. 

strictly and rigidly separated, so as not to confound 
and confuse both ; and every office ought to be elec- 
tive, so as to keep all patronage in the hands of the 
rightful possessors. Each officer should be elected 
on the same day, at least annually, and the remunera- 
tion ought not to be more than that of fair remune- 
rated productive labor, and no one officer of the gov- 
ernment should receive a higher salary than another. 
But I will treat more of this in another place. 

The only form of government that is conformable 
to the interests of all, is the democratic; because 
under it every citizen is consulted upon national 
affairs. I know that it has been urged by political 
writers, "that it is necessary to have a check upon this 
form, by an aristocracy £* but this is entirely errone- 
ous — it is like taking a barrel of flour, and adulterat- 
ing it with saw dust ; and when, as is the fact now in 
Great Britain, a king is introduced, it is then neces- 
sary to add more saw dust, until, finally, no man can 
tell whether the barrel be filled with all saw dust or 
all flour. It appears that the legislative department* 
in many countries, is composed of three separate and 
distinct branches : for instance, the king and two 
houses, as in France, and in England, and the Presi- 
dent, the Senate and House of Representatives, as in 
this country. Why there should be two houses, I can 
find no reason. One is a drag chain on the other, 
causing all kind of delays in the transaction of na- 
tional affairs, not to mention the enormous expense 
attending it ; moreover, the President ought to be 
bound by the decisions of the Representatives, and 
have no veto, or pardoning power, or power of patron- 
age vested in him. The people cannot be too cautious 
in delegating their own power to their servants. The 
thirst for power has done more to cause tyranny than 



EQUALITY. 11 

almost any thing else. There can be no sovereign 
but the people ; therefore, a wise people will guard 
against every attempt of despotism and usurpation on 
the part of their delegates. The administrative por- 
tion of the government is composed of judges, magis- 
trates, police, marine, and military forces, &c., and 
more strictly speaking, so is the President, seeing that 
even he cannot, of himself, make laws. It is unne- 
cessary to continue this chapter further. 



CHAPTER III. 

ON LAWS. 

If the original pact or covenant is to be maintained, 
laws cannot, under any contingency, be made to favor 
one man or one class of men. Legislation must 
always be for the good of all, and not for any favored 
class. The social contract forbids favoritism in legis- 
lation. Whenever laws are made so as to cause dis- 
tinctions in society, there is an end of all justice. Any 
laws which encourage castes or classes, is a perver- 
sion of the primary agreement. Thus the systems 
of kingcraft, and of aristocracy, and of chartered 
monopolies, are wrong and mischievous. No law 
can or ought to be binding on any citizen, when run- 
ning counter to the rights of man It is entirely 
swerving from the question, to say " that the majority 
must rule." This can only apply so long as the pact 
is not infringed upon. Why are laws made? Not 
certainly to guide the upright man, but to compel each 
citizen to act justly by and to his fellow citizen. Laws 
are enacted under the general will, stating certain pro- 



12 EQUALITY. 

positions, thus and so, and applicable equally and im- 
partially to all, without respect of persons. It fol- 
lows, then, as surely as night follows day, that under 
no possible plea can laws be made which will have a 
partial tendency, because the very enactment of such 
laws is " despotism, and ought to be resisted." "But 
this resistance," it may be said, " will lead to anar- 
chy." Better it should, because " it is much better 
to have anarchy than despotism." By this I do not 
wish it to be inferred that I am in favor of anarchy ; 
but I do say that even anarchy is preferable to des* 
potism and slavery — in proof of which hear God- 
win : " The nature of anarchy has never been suffi- 
ciently understood. It is, undoubtedly, a horrible 
calamity, but it is less horrible than despotism. — 
Where anarchy has slain its hundreds, despotism 
has sacrificed its millions upon millions, with this 
only effect, to perpetuate the ignorance, the vices, and 
the misery of mankind. Anarchy is a short lived 
mischief, while despotism is all but immortal. It is 
unquestionably a great evil, and a dreadful remedy 
for the people to yield to all their furious passions, till 
the spectacle of their effects gives strength to recover- 
ing reason ; but though it be a dreadful remedy, it is 
a sure one. No idea can be more pregnant with ab- 
surdity than that of a whole people taking arms 
against each other till they are all exterminated. It 
is to despotism that anarchy is indebted for its sting ! 
If despotism were not ever watchful for its prey, and 
mercilessly prepared, to take advantage of the errors 
of mankind, this ferment, like so many others, being 
left to itself, would subside into even, clear, and de- 
lightful calm. Reason is at all times progressive. 
Nothing can give permanence to error, that does not 






EQUALITY. 13 

convert it into an establishment, and arm it with 
powers to resist an invasion." 

The past ignorance of man has enabled the few to 
rivet manacles on the limbs of the people. Law is 
generally the embodiment of the public mind, or 
general will. Wherever I perceive castes, as among 
the Hindoos ; men deprived of their political rights, 
as in Prussia, or Italy ; serfs, as in Russia ; or 
slaves, as in the United States. I attribute such 
grades of society to the ignorance of the mass of the 
population. Laws to be obeyed, must be made to 
conform to natural rights. Hereditary aristocracy 
and kingcraft are opposed to these rights, hence the 
unceasing wars by the people against kings and aris- 
tocrats. Every law encouraging and sanctioning 
monopoly, such as banking, railway, canal, or 
other companies, is an attack upon the rights of man, 
because privileges are conferred on the few to the ex- 
clusion of the majority. Whenever the elements of 
nature are monopolised hy individuals, that is, when 
certain individuals arrogate to themselves the right to 
aggrandize themselves, by seizing upon the soil or 
water of a country, they invade the rights of others, 
and if the laws approve of their conduct, society must 
resist such laws and repeal them. Laws can confer 
no rights ; they may guard them. Law can and does 
confer privileges. Laws* are partially enacted ; they 
have hitherto been like cables to bind the workman, 
and like cobwebs to let the wealthy escape. I am 
safe in asserting, that thus far there have been no 
laws enacted, in any country, strictly impartial 
and equalitarian in all their tendencies. Laws can- 
not be enacted contrary to the constitution; if they be, 
anarchy ensues. Laws to be understood and obeyed, 
should be few and plain. Ail laws ought to emanate 

2 * 



14 EQUALITY. 

from the people and the legislature's business is to 
place them in a proper form. When the legislature 
has shaped the bill into its proper form, it should 
return it to the people at the annual ballots, for them 
to decide upon its merits. Laws of various kinds 
become useless from time to time ; to remedy the evil 
of retaining these useless laws, on the first year of 
each generation, all such laws as become a dead 
letter, should be submitted to the people, to have them 
abrogated as useless. Had the social contract never 
been outraged, there would only be a small quantity 
of law required. Nearly all the laws relating to pro- 
perty, are incorrect, which I will demonstrate in an- 
other place. Were all debts, debts of honor, a vast 
deal of litigation would be saved. Annul, or let 
expire, all chartered monopolies, and there will be 
much less law. Prevent man from holding property 
in his fellow man; prevent usury or interest for 
money ; alter the law of libel ; and above any thing 
and every thing, make the elements of nature, the air, 
the water, and the earth, the property of the human 
race ; then, indeed, will all the vexations and losses 
attending law, lawyers, and law courts cease ; then 
will chancellors, counsellors, judges, barristers, attor- 
neys, solicitors, bailiffs, constables, with their whole 
train of satellites, vanish forever. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ON PARTIES. 



There cannot be liberty where there are factions 
and parties, because each represents that it alone is 



EQUALITY. ^15 

patriotic. The general will is formed by the aggre- 
gate of individual wills. But when there are several 
parties or factions contending for power, all the indivi- 
dual wills become merged into partisan wills, and it 
is no longer the country, or the rights of man which 
are regarded, but the party and its interests, be they 
right or wrong. Every political organization is an 
evil, is a despotism. One party may be better, be 
purer than another ; what I mean is, that one party 
may be organized to counteract the pernicious influ- 
ence of a tyrannic or aristocratic party. 

I intend here briefly to review the positions of the 
two great parties which now divide the American 
people, as well as their offshoots, the abolition and 
native parties. 

The cause of the Revolution in this country, was a 
violation of the rights of man, on the part of George 
the Third, and his advisers, by insisting that the Par- 
liament of Great Britain had the right and power to 
tax the Colonies, without the consent of the colonists. 
After the Revolution had terminated, Washington 
was chosen President. On the expiration of his 
second term of office, the elder Adams was elected as 
his successor. He considered the British Constitu- 
tion the " beau ideal of perfection." During his ad- 
ministration were passed laws which gagged the press, 
which made it sedition for the citizens to discuss their 
grievances, which prevented a foreigner from being 
naturalized until he had been nineteen years in the 
country. He and Hamilton, with others, were the chiefs 
of the then federal party, since altered to the name 
of Whig. This party then, and ever since, has con- 
sistently been the advocates of banks, of paper issues, 
of tariffs, of monopolies of every description, of pri- 
vileged classes, and of aristocracy. I ask, where are 



16 EQUALITY. 

the records of this party in favor of equality ? echo 
answers, where ! The derhocratic party was or- 
ganized by that magnate of nature, Thomas Jeffer- 
son. His powerful and truthful pen annihilated the 
doctrines of the federalists. During his terms of 
office u the alien, and sedition, and gagging laws" 
were repealed. He recognized the great truths of the 
equality of mankind. He may truly be said to be 
the Apostle of Democracy. He got his ideas from 
Paine, and Paine obtained his from the great fountain 
of political truth, the writings of the immortal Jean 
Jacques Rousseau. Andrew Jackson was a worthy 
successor of Jefferson ; both agreed that the earth 
was the common property of man; both were faithful 
expounders of the creed of democracy. But has the 
party itself been true to its principles ? has the party 
been consistent advocates and defenders of the rights 
of man ? has it, where it has had the power, de- 
stroyed paper money in each State ? has it made the 
land of the United States free to actual settlers? has 
it established free trade ? has it abrogated usury ? has 
it abolished slavery ? has it prevented monopoly ? I 
ask for proofs. If it has not done these things, and I 
contend that it has not, it is false to its own principles, 
and can no longer be styled the Democracy. The 
native party, the stillborn offspring of federalism, has 
been of the most cruel and intolerant character, and has 
recorded its brief history in letters of blood and fire. 
The abolition party go for the destruction of black sla- 
very, but in their pseudo philanthropy, forget the white 
slave. I put the same questions regarding them as I 
did of the democrats, and 1 wish for a reply. But in 
addition to these, there are several other societies, 
among which may be mentioned " Freemasons, Odd 
Fellows, Druids, Foresters, Good Fellows," each of 



EQUALITY. 17 

which exercises an influence more or less upon the 
politics of the country. All of these associations are 
injurious, in the highest degree, to the " body politic," 
in more ways than one. 

First, each of these takes men's attention from their 
best interests ; second, they exercise an undue influ- 
ence over men's opinions in political matters ; third, 
they ape the aristocratic orders of the old world, by 
their profuse use of insignia, of ribbands, of decora- 
tions, and of titles ; fourth, they are secret. There 
ought to be no political or secret associations in a 
State. The fact of there being such, proves that the 
people are unable to take care of themselves. " The 
people, one and indivisible," should be, the only party. 
There is no necessity for go betweens between the 
elected and the electors ; no juntas, or cliques, or 
cabals, or caucuses, will ever be permitted by a wise 
and free people. Every officer, State or National, 
should be elected on the same day, over the whole 
country. One term of office, all officers to be remu- 
nerated alike, and to be measured by the pay of pro- 
ductive labor. 

What I have here said applies equally well to the 
secret temperance associations. This logic will appear 
startling to many upon a mere superficial view ; but 
I am desirous that the people should look at our pre- 
sent system of electioneering, the immense sums of 
money expended, the valuable time and talents 
wasted, the rancor, the malevolence engendered by it. 
Let a different and a better system be substituted, and 
there will not then be an hundredth or a thousandth 
part of the ill feeling which there js now, to obtain 
and to retain office. The people being physically 
comfortable, and mentally educated, will select the 
wisest citizens to direct their affairs. Such a people 



18 EQUALITY. 

will possess liberty without licentiousness, equality of 
political rights without slavery, healthy labor without 
eternal drudgery, and last, but not least, the best of 
education untrammelled by unmeaning jargon. In 
such a state it is impossible to conceive how far man- 
kind might progress in wisdom, in virtue, and in hap- 
piness. 



CHAPTER V. 

RIGHT OF OPINION." 

Were I to consult popular prejudices, a chapter of 
this nature would be entirely omitted ; but as " truth 
is great and will prevail," I do not feel myself jus- 
tified to shirk this question. I do not purpose to in- 
vestigate the cause of religious ideas, nor to censure 
the religious opinions of any man. I hold that every 
person is endowed with religious notions, be they cor- 
rect or the contrary. Every one supposes that his 
own religion is the right one, and as such is the fact, 
must it not be extremely foolish for men to persecute 
each other on account of mere matters of belief? Re- 
ligion is an affair which rests entirely between man 
and the Creator, and it is the height of blasphemy 
for any one to arrogate to himself the right of dog- 
matically proclaiming that all religions are false but 
his own. Let each consider that to the best of his 
knowledge, he believes what is true at least to him- 
self; but also to give credit to others for their sin- 
cerity. Any religion which teaches morality is good. 
A religion is positively an # evil when it becomes an 
engine of the State ; when this is the case, it perse- 
cutes other sects, who in their turn resist, and by this 



EQUALITY* 19 

system whole communities have been plunged in all 
the horrors of anarchy, and often despotism. 

Jefferson has it, " That what matters it though my 
neighbor believes in one God or twenty gods, it 
neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. Rea- 
son and free inquiry are the only effectual weapons 
against error. Give a loose to them, and they will 
support the true religion. Reason and experiment 
have been indulged in, and error has fled before 
them. It is error alone which needs the support of 
government. Differences of opinion are advantageous 
in religion. The several sects perform the office of 
censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attain- 
able? What has been the effect of coercion? to make 
one half the world fools, and the other half, hypocrites; 
to support roguery and error all over the earth. Let 
us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions 
of people ; that these possess probably a thousand 
different systems of religion ; that ours is but one of 
that thousand. But if there be but one right, and 
ours that one, we should wish to see the nine hundred 
and ninety-nine wandering sects gathered into the 
folds of truth. But against such a majority we can- 
not effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are 
the only practicable instruments. To make way for 
these, free inquiry must be indulged, and how can we 
ask others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves." 

There is a great deal said about toleration. When- 
ever any sect assumes to itself the power of tolerat- 
ing other sects, it then violates the primary covenant ; 
because, according to it, each sect, and each man, has 
as good a right to believe in his religious creed as any 
one else in his. Who can decide which is the right 
religion? certainly not erring man. Let each enjoy 
that opinion which he believes to be the best — not 



20 EQUALITY. 

upon the principles of toleration, but of right. Let 
persecution cease, and justice and charity take its 
place, as Pope says ; 

" For modes of faith, let graceless zealots fight, 
His can't be wrong whose life is in the right; 
In faith and hope the world will disagree, 
But all mankind's concern is charity." 



CHAPTER VI. 

EDUCATION. 

Immense folios have been written upon education. 
Prosy volumes which no person could ever wade 
through, and yet I consider, that in a state where the 
rights of man are the props of the social edifice, 
nothing could be more natural than for each child to 
receive a sound, practical education. An education 
based upon equality of rights, might embrace the fol- 
lowing subjects : reading, writing, arithmetic, gram- 
mar, geography. Under a true democratic state of 
society, every member of the community is enabled 
to procure all the necessaries and comforts of life by 
moderate labor, and can, therefore, afford to keep his 
children at the national school. Each school has a 
complete set of workshops attached to it, with every 
kind of tools and machines. Children are taken into 
these workshops ; one has a taste for engineering, an- 
other for manufactures, a third for architecture, and 
so of all the others ; each selects that particular oc- 
cupation most congenial to his wishes, and as the re- 
muneration of all kinds of labor is equal, there can- 
not be any preference for a particular trade, because, 
if the hand loom weaver, or shoemaker, is paid as 



EQUALITY. 21 

well, and no better, than an engraver, or machinist, 
men will then have no objection to any particular oc- 
cupation for their children. By adopting this method, 
each individual, male and female, would have one, 
two, or three trades learned before they now have one. 
Boys and girls at school, would then have an induce- 
ment to learn, by varying their hours of study. 
When they had been a couple of hours in the school 
room, take them for the space of an hour or two into 
the workshop — when tired there, let them have their 
time for amusement. It is necessary that a large 
green should be attached to each school, where the 
quoit and the cricket ball should be used ; where run- 
ning, wrestling, and other athletic exercises should be 
learned. I would also have them instructed in the 
use of the sword and the rifle, so that when they be- 
came men, they should be able to repel a foreign foe, 
or invader, and arrest and punish domestic traitors. 
A large garden should also belong to the school, to 
educate such as chose to become botanists, herbalists, 
horticulturists, or agriculturists ; the greatest care to 
be taken to impart as great a knowledge of agricul- 
tural chemistry as possible. Libraries should be also 
a part of the schools, in which the best selected books 
would be placed for the use of the scholars. The 
whole system of education to consist of the most 
practical nature, to develope all the faculties of man- 
kind, to draw forth the intellectual, the moral, and 
the physical powers of the individual. To educate 
men correctly, they must be taken when young ; for 

Youth, like the softened wax, with care will take 

Those images that first impressions make ; 

If those are fair, their actions will be bright, 

If not, they are clouded with the shades of night. — Pope. 

They ought to be taught that chartered corpora- 

3 



22 EQUALITY. 

tions are unjust ; that the monopoly of the earth is 
contrary to human rights ; that banks, that usury, 
that interest, that, profit, that unequal wages, and ex- 
changes, are contrary to the spirit of equality ; that a 
conspiracy to introduce privileged orders into the 
State, is the greatest of all possible crimes ; crimes 
which never can be atoned for — even the lives of the 
conspirators could be no atonement for so heinous an 
offence. Robbery, arson, and even murder, are 
venial sins in comparison to a conspiracy against the 
rights of man ; because, at most, a few years will 
terminate the effects of the former, while the effects 
of the latter last for ages, causing oppression and 
misery without end. It is to guard against conspira- 
tors and traitors, domestic and foreign, that I would 
have the people martially instructed, because, as the 
old adage says, " The best way to command peace is 
to be prepared for war." I would also have a people 
taught to understand their own systems, that they 
might live upon wholesome regimen, and natural 
food ; then the necessity for having very many 
medical men will be greatly lessened, and, as I have 
shown in the third chapter, the number of lawyers 
would be also greatly diminished. By so educating 
the people, thousands upon thousands of persons who 
now live upon the labor of others, would have to be- 
come producers themselves, and thus become a bless- 
ing to the whole community. 

I would also have a gallery of paintings and sculp- 
ture; the fine arts should also be studied by all who 
choose, and then where there has been one Angelo, 
one Raphael, one Canova, one Arkwright, one Fulton, 
there would be one thousand, perhaps, ten thousand ; 
but I wish to be most distinctly understood, that 
sooner than witness the triumphs of art, of science, of 



EQUALITY. 23 

steam, of mechanics, of chemistry, and of electricity, 
continually to take place for the few, during all future 
time, as has hitherto been the fact ; I had rather see the 
human race retrograde to barbarism. I conclude the 
substance of this chapter, that education should con- 
sist in a knowledge of the most useful facts known, 
so as to enable the citizen to discharge his duties to 
himself and to society. 



CHAPTER VII. 

COMMERCE. 

I cast my mind's eye over the earth, and what do 
I behold? I am carried to London, to Manchester, 
to Birmingham, to Glasgow, to Lyons, to Venice, to 
New York, and I witness the palace and the hovel, 
the aristocrat " clothed in purple and fine linen every 
day," and the beggar in tatters. Profligacy and de- 
bauchery in the saloons of- the magnates of the earth, 
and squalor, and wretchedness, and starvation, in the 
homes of the poor. I look back into the history of 
the past : there is Venice, commercial Venice, during 
her thirteen hundred years of trading prosperity ; she 
made slaves of her producers, and without even the 
formality of a trial, consigned to the silent lagoons of 
the Adriatic, those persons who had become obnoxious 
to her oligarchy. Spain opened her way to the 
Western World, and waged a war of extermination 
against the aborigines ; the bloody and cruel acts of 
her Pizarros and Cortes, can attest the benign influ- 
ence of commerce. England, civilizing England, 
commercial England, " whose flag has braved a thou- 



24 EQUALITY. 

sand years the battle and the breeze," next appears 
upon the stage. Surely the world proclaims aloud 
the impartial justice of this great trading maritime 
power. Portugal can bear testimony to her justice, 
the West Indian, and swart African, do attest her 
benevolence, the inhabitants of Hindostan's plains, 
chaunt lo peans to her honesty. The natives of the 
Celestial empire, bear in grateful remembrance, the 
kindness of their opium friends, and Ireland hugs 
with rapturous delight, the justice of England, which 
has not oppressed or degraded her children ! The 
ignorance, the destitution, and the disfranchised con- 
dition of nine-tenths of her own population, are 
proofs of her selfishness. 

I ask, how can a commercial people be a just peo- 
ple ? it is absolutely impossible ! The very nature 
of commerce is to engender deceit and fraud. The 
whole system is based upon the principle of buying 
cheap and selling dear. How can a nation act up- 
right when each of its citizens is interested in false- 
hood ? If cotton is damaged, is it not the aim of the 
seller to conceal it? Do not speculators run up the 
price of the necessaries of life to a famine standard? 
Is not a man's respectability measured by the length 
of his purse? Has not the mill owner an interest in 
every revolution of the engine which sets his ma- 
chinery in motion ? Does he not set a greater value 
upon this property of his than he does upon the human 
flesh that attends it. Do not the bankers expand and 
contract the currency, if it be proper to call rags cur- 
rency, to amass large fortunes? Are not all the 
transactions of trade based upon these sordid motives? 
Are not the holiest feelings of u the human heart, the 
love of country and of kind," offered as a holocaust 
to this Moloch system '! Where is the most virtue, 



EQUALITY. 25 

independence, and happiness to be found ? Is it 
among an agricultural or a commercial people? Are 
not cities the putrid cesspools of a nation ? Are they 
not the results of commercial enterprise? Is it not 
in them that I behold the extremes of wretchedness" 
of vice, and of crime? Are our people freer from 
the spirit of avarice than other commercial nations ? 
Are the populations of Lowell, or of Manayunk, less 
at the mercy of the capitalists than those of Lyons, 
or of Manchester? Is a factory master kinder to his 
wages slaves in America than in Europe ? Is trade 
conducted upon honester principles upon this conti- 
nent than upon any other ? It is the man's advice to 
his son, " to get rich honestly, but at all events to 
get rich." 

It is now admitted upon all sides, that " labor is the 
source of all wealth," and that no individual can be- 
come wealthy, no matter how clever, unless from and 
by labor. The Secretary of the Treasury,in his report of 
December 8th, 1847, says, that to the value of three 
thousand millions of dollars worth of wealth, is an- 
nually produced in the United States. The popula- 
tion is now upwards of twenty millions of people, one 
half males and the other half females. Half of the 
males are able to work, leaving the other half to be 
superannuated, or under age. This calculation will 
afford five millions of able bodied men, capable of 
laboring; the number of females fit for productive 
labor, perhaps, may be recorded as two to five males, 
this will make seven millions of persons able to labor. 
But I am led to believe that two-sevenths of those 
able to labor, may be included among those classes 
who live upon labor, but who labor not ; this will 
give five millions of persons at productive employ- 
ment. These calculations demonstrate, that if there 

3* 



26 EQUALITY. 

be five millions of producers, and that three thousand 
millions of dollars worth of wealth is yearly pro- 
duced, that each laborer produces six hundred dollars 
per annum, or about twelve dollars a week, in round 
numbers. I find that fortunes of from one hun- 
dred thousand dollars to thirty-five millions, have 
been made by several individuals. Can any man 
ever hoard up such immense sums and properties out 
of his honest industry ? preposterous idea ! It is 
sufficiently plain that the man who receives more 
than twelve dollars a week, must get it by other means 
than his own industry, and that those who receive 
less, are robbed of the residue, which finds its way 
into the coffers of the robbers, and that, as a natural 
consequence, the one party is cheated, while the other 
cheats. True it is, that hoary antiquity has sanctified 
the system of commerce, but that does not prove its 
justice. " Truth is the same to-day, yesterday, and 
forever." 

" Not all that heralds rake from coffined clay, 
Nor florid prose, nor honied words of rhyme 
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime." 

lam told " that charity and benevolence spring 
from the bosom of commerce, and that they distri- 
bute joy and happiness around." This is a mere 
superficial view. When the crafty and designing, by 
legal means, have taken from the producer most of 
what has been produced; when they have made 
every man's home miserable ; when destitution and 
want stare the workman in the face ; when actual 
starvation is all but driving the people to phrenzy, 
then to prevent justice from overtaking themselves — 
" for revenge is a wild kind of justice" — they part 
with a small portion of the wealth which they have 
plundered from the workman, and call it charity, lest 



EQUALITY. 27 

a maddened populace might compel them to disgorge 
the whole. They take the whole loaf, and then in 
their most superabundant charity, they give the crust 
to the rightful owners — out upon such charity ! The 
demand has gone forth, that the cold charity which 
the oppressors of the people are anxious to bestow, 
is an insult, and that justice, sublime, eternal justice, 
must be substituted in its stead ! 

The ablest political writer of the present day in 
Great Britain, named James Bronterre O'Brien, thus 
draws a picture of commerce and commercial men : 
" Instead of rendering men the unflinching enemies 
of oppression, commerce has hitherto been the greatest 
destroyer of liberty, ever known to man. By whom 
were the natives of Africa torn from friends and 
home, and sold to bitter bondage all their days ? by 
commercial men ! By whom is the remorseless lash 
wielded over the bleeding slave's back in Britain's colo- 
nies, and even in republican America ? by commercial 
men ! By whom has Hindostan been plundered and 
enslaved for two hundred years? by commercial men! 
By whom were the simple aborigines of America, and 
the West Indies slaughtered like sheep, and hunted 
down with mastiffs, let loose against their naked 
limbs, three centuries ago ? by commercial men ! By 
whom are the liberties of the United States threatened 
with destruction, and her working citizens with Eu- 
ropean misery and bondage ? by her commercial men ! 
By whom are thirty millions of Frenchmen at present 
robbed of their civil rights, and made the hopeless 
prey of mammon and arbitrary power ? by an armed 
shopocracy of commercial men ! By whom is Eng- 
land, the most laborious nation of all times, ancient 
or modern, by whom is this magnificent country now 
enslaved and pauperized? by her commercial men! 



28 EQUALITY. 

Away, away, then, with the revolting cant which 
would unite liberty and commerce in the same breath ! 
Heaven and hell are not more diametrically opposed 
to each other than is commerce to heaven- born 
liberty L" 

It would be miraculous, indeed, to expect aught 
else than selfishness from the present commercial 
system, where each man is engaged in the same 
deadly race against his fellow, where the struggle is 
not to emulate each other in noble and philanthropic 
actions, but only to amass riches. I close this chapter 
by a quotation from Shelley. 

Commerce, beneath whose poison-breathing shade, 
No solitary virtue dares to spring ; 
But poverty and wealth, with equal hand, 
Scatter their withering curses, and unfold 
The doors of premature and violent death 
To pining famine and full-fed disease, 
To all that share the lot of human life 
Which poisoned body and soul scarce drags the chain 
That lengthens as it goes, and drags behind. 
Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, 
The signet of its all-enslaving power 
Upon a shining ore, and called it gold ; 
Before whose image bow the vulgar great, 
The vainly rich, the mercenary proud, 
The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, 
And with blind feelings, reverence the power 
Which grinds them to the dust in misery ; 
For, in the temple of their hireling hearts, 
Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn 
All earthly things but virtue. 



. CHAPTER VIII. 

TARIFFS. 

So much has been said and written upon tariffs, 



EQUALITY. 29 

that one might suppose that every citizen understood 
them in all their bearings. Is such the fact? How 
few, how very few are cognizant of the nature of 
tariffs. How few can tell the differences between 
protective tariffs, revenue tariffs, and incidental tariffs ; 
between fixed duties and ad valorem duties, and a 
host of other high sounding epithets ? The whole of 
this jargon is only another of the schemes of the 
people's oppressors to hoodwink and to delude them. 
The whole matter resolves itself into this, that mono- 
poly must triumph. Mr. Hopkins, and Mr. Tomp- 
kins, are two storekeepers. Mr. Hopkins gets a law 
passed, " that all the neighborhood shall buy at his 
store," although his goods are the dearer. And, fur- 
thermore, he persuades his neighbors, that " they will 
be ruined if they buy of the other storekeeper." But 
some refractory fellow says, " I will buy of Tomp- 
kins, because it is the cheaper firm." " Nonsense, 
nonsense," says Hopkins, for Hopkins is a politician, 
" my dear sir, really you cannot understand your 
own interest, as well as I do, because I have been 
educated in the Clay and Webster school — I have 
been to college — I have conned over Adam Smith, 
and Ricardo, and Malthus, and I do assure you, that 
unless you purchase your goods as I suggest, and 
adopt the eternal principles of protective monopoly, 
you yourself will be ruined forever, and the whole 
neighborhood beggared." Divest the arguments of 
the protectionists of .their hypocrisy, and it amounts 
to the substance of the above. Yet thus it is that the 
proletarians allow themselves to be bamboozled. 
What is the difference between the two kinds of pro- 
tectionists ? exactly the difference between the croco- 
dile and the alligator — that is, no difference whatever, 
and well the tariff advocates know it. I am told that 



30 EQUALITY. 

free trade cannot be established with safety; certainly 
not with safety to the office holder, and place seeker. 
I proceed, first, to show what a protective tariff 
means. I now ask, what does it mean ? Does it 
mean to protect the producer from the innumerable 
wrongs inflicted upon them by their merciless task 
masters? Does it mean that the producers of all 
wealth shall be protected in its enjoyment? Does it 
mean that low wages, and poverty, and crime shall 
be known no more? Does it mean any of these 
things? most assuredly not. Then, what does it 
mean ! It means that a small minority of privileged indi- 
viduals shall be legally protected in robbing and plun- 
dering the great bulk of the people. It means that the 
whole community shall be taxed to enable those few 
to wallow in luxury and debauchery. Have the 
manufacturers who have reaped all its benefits, ever 
dreamed of conferring even a tithe of them upon their 
operatives ? Have they raised wages when the rates 
of duties were high ? no, no — but quite the contrary. 
Even when the rates of duties were high, they kept 
wages as low as possible. I know this by experience. 
But even if the employers had acted honestly, which 
they never yet have done, high duties could not last 
iong, because the high wages for factory operatives in 
this country would inevitably attract greater numbers 
from the pauper-paid laborers of Europe ; hence, by 
the labor market being overstocked, the unfortunate 
artisan is forced to beg employment from his lordly 
fellow worm ! The competition to obtain a living 
becomes severer every day ; workmen underbid each 
other, and, finally, wages are reduced to the merest 
pittance. This position cannot be refuted ; the his- 
tory of the world proves it. Moreover, is it not the 
object and intention of the protectionists to create a 



EQUALITY. 31 

great manufacturing population in this country ? Do 
they not desire to witness Lowell surpassing Man- 
chester, Manayunk, Lyons, and New York, London, 
in splendor, in riches, in luxury, in destitution, in 
profligacy, and in crime ! It is said that these things 
are not the effects of tariffs. Who will dare deny 
facts. Has not England, and does she not still main- 
tain the doctrine of protection ? What is the condi- 
tion of her people ? on the verge of rebellion — trod- 
den to the very dust of misery ! In London alone, 
there are eighty thousand prostitutes ! Monopolies 
of every description carefully protected by law ; 
foreign articles of manufacture excluded by the most 
rigid statutes, and yet starvation is the fate of count- 
less thousands of England's producing classes. 

In the teeth of these astounding facts, the protec- 
tionists are so lost to honesty and shame as to en» 
deavor to introduce and perpetuate a similar system 
in our own country. Have not protective tariffs 
begot factories ? and are not the hands employed in 
these earthly pandemoniums, the vassals, the hired 
vassals of the factory lord ? Must not his ipse dixit 
rule? Who dare gainsay his tyrannical mandate? 
Is it to support an enslaving and liberty-killing sys- 
tem like this, that the freemen of the republic are 
solicited to sanction it by their votes ? Is a revenue 
tariff honester than the protective ? facts must give 
an answer. I have invariably to revert to the rights 
of man to illustrate my position. A tariff for revenue 
is a monstrous imposition. Why is it so ? because it 
maintains a whole army of office holders in idleness ; 
because the tax imposed is unequal, and therefore, 
unjust ; because the workman who earns five dollars, 
is taxed as much as the man who has one hundred 
thousand dollars per annum ; because it is anti-demo- 



32 EQUALITY. 

cratic, anti-republican in its tendency ; because the 
people by this hocus pocus method of paying the 
taxes, can never witness the frauds that are imposed 
upon them ; because the taxes are three times more 
than they would be by direct taxation ; because the 
government is always extravagant under the opera- 
tions of indirect taxation ; because direct taxation is 
the only just and republican system. For all these 
reasons, a tariff for revenue is essentially detrimental 
to free institutions. Moreover, the incidental tariff 
party has not been consistent, because in the South, 
Southwest, and West, it has advocated free trade, 
while in the North, East, and Middle States, it has 
supported tariff doctrines. Every person taken from 
the ranks of labor must, as a matter of course, live 
upon labor, therefore, all the custom house officers 
who are kept to collect a revenue for government, are 
so many drones in the hive of labor. 

It is often asserted that the foreigner pays the duty 
— this is not true. Does the foreigner send his pro- 
duce to us for nothing? if he does, then does he pay 
the duty ; but as the people here have to pay for all 
they receive, every cent laid on in duty, above the 
value of the article, has to be paid for by the Ame- 
rican laborer. The amount of revenue paid into the 
coffers of the government, is about one-third of the 
gross imports. In the year eighteen hundred and 
forty-five, there were twenty-seven millions of dollars 
of revenue collected; this makes the nett sum of 
eighty-one millions of dollars to have been paid by the 
producers of this country, or that each of the rive 
millions of producers paid upwards of sixteen dollars 
each in indirect taxation ; because, as I before stated, 
the laborers have to pay all. It is all nonsense to 
suppose that the capitalist pays any of it, inasmuch 



EQUALITY. 33 

as he has not the means until first he takes it from 
the laborer. It is our proud boast, that the govern- 
ment of the United States is the cheapest in the world ; 
but it ought to be much cheaper than it is. It would 
be so, had we direct taxation ; for then, as each man 
had to pay directly, he would be more watchful as to 
how the taxes were expended. I know that a hue 
and cry will be raised against the doctrines here in- 
culcated ; but by whom ? — by those who receive ex- 
tremely high salaries under the present nefarious sys- 
tem. Be it so : truth is a mighty power, and it must 
ultimately triumph in the good time coming. There- 
fore, free trade, based upon equal exchanges, value 
for value, must finally become the law of all honest 
communities, despite the efforts of the wolves and the 
vultures to the contrary. 



CHAPTER IX. 



BANKING, 



In pursuing this inquiry, I have been led, step by 
step, in the investigation of one wrong after another, 
until I have arrived at the question of banking, or 
usury. All interest upon money is usury. I grant 
that unjust legislation has legalized it. The system 
of banking is so extremely complicated and mystified, 
that few people can understand it. I intend to sim- 
plify it. The cabalistic words, bears, bulls, consols, 
scrip, debentures, stocks, omnium funds, relief notes, 
exchequer bills, stripped of their mysterious significa- 
tions, simply amount to swindlers and swindling! 

4 



34 EQUALITY. 

The first thing to be explained, is the method taken 
to start a bank. 

Whenever a number of individuals intend to com- 
mence a banking company, say ten in number. They 
have already obtained the charter, either with or with- 
out the individual liability. The individual liability is 
a farce ! The capital upon which the bank is sup- 
posed to be based, is two hundred thousand dollars ; 
the shareholders are expected to pay in their shares 
either in specie or in bankable notes ; they have 
neither the one nor the other; they assemble together, 
and each pays in five hundred dollars, instead of 
twenty thousand ; this sum suffices to rent a building 
for the future establishment, to furnish it with coun- 
ters, chairs, books, et cetera, and to have their plates 
engraved. The next thing done is to strike off as 
many notes as can be got into immediate circulation. 
Now the bank is established. The next instalment 
becomes due ; they go to one counter and borrow 
their own notes— -for money Ivnll not call it — and 
then they turn to the other, and pay it in. They 
have never paid in more than one-fortieth of their 
agreement. This is the secret of making banks. Do 
they limit the issues to the legal amount ? certainly 
not ; in many instances, they issue five times more 
than the law allows. The amount of notes of the 
bank, instead of remaining at two hundred thousand, 
are increased to a million or upwards. A million of 
dollars at six per cent, amounts to sixty thousand 
dollars per annum, thus giving six thousand dollars 
nett profit yearly to each of the shareholders, and all 
this for an instalment of five hundred dollars. This 
is the least part of the wrong, by these over issues. 
Paper is extremely plenty ; the speculators, many of 
them bankers themselves, borrow largely, go into the 



EQUALITY. 35 

market, forestal it, raise the price of all kinds of pro- 
duce to an unnatural standard, cause the barrel of flpur 
to sell at ten dollars instead of five, thus carrying 
want into the homes of the work people. Merchants 
borrow largely from the banks, the competition for 
the purchase of goods is predominant, immense for- 
tunes are made in a short time. The merchant ac- 
commodates the wholesale dealers, who, in their turn, 
give credit to the retail shopkeeper, and to use a com- 
mon expression, " times never were better." Here I 
will pause to ask a question or two : if the merchant 
makes his half million, of whom does he get it ? of 
the producer — he cannot get it from any other 
quarter. At first it may appear that he gets it in the 
profits he makes of the wholesale buyer ; but the 
latter can only pay him by the profits he makes of 
the retailer, and he must make his profits of the pro- 
ducers ; thus it is that all rests upon labor. 

It is objected, that the producer does not pay for all, 
6eeing that he is not the only purchaser admitted ; the 
lawyer, the judge, the doctor, the clergyman, the 
landlord, consume as well as the laborer, and there- 
fore, they must purchase ; but where do they get the 
means of purchasing from ? only from the laborer ! 
This is evident. But " a change comes o'er the spirit 
of the dream." The reckoning day is at Hand ! The 
bankers have now got fheir notes into extensive cir- 
culation. The merchant who has borrowed twenty 
thousand dollars from the bank, is informed that the 
time for payment has arrived. Security has been 
given for him on real estate ; he is unable to pay at 
the appointed time, his securities are prosecuted, he 
and they become bankrupt ; alarm is the order of the 
day ; crash, crash, crash, in the commercial world ! 
The property of these men is brought to the hammer, 



36 



EQUALITY. 



and generally sold at one half or one third its value. 
The bankers taking precious care that the property 
shall be theirs. This is stagnation in trade. 

There is another way by which these cannibals 
cheat the people. They purchase up as much real 
estate as possible with their own notes ; they consign 
it over to their wives or children, then the bank^is 
closed— it is broken! Behold the effects upon in- 
dustry. Here is a hard working man who has toiled 
for years .to accumulate " something for a rainy day ;" 
he has a few hundred dollars in notes of the rotten 
institution, his all is destroyed ; he is not a philoso- 
pher, he flies to ^"revenge, which is a wild kind of 
justice," and on the first opportunity, he murders 
some of the miscreants who have robbed him, and 
then, forsooth, he is handed over to the tender mercies 
of the executioner, another victim to the Moloch 
power of capital. 

Cobbett has well defined the nature of banking, in 
the following quotation: "Alas! the funds are no 
place at all ! and, indeed, how should they be, seeing 
that they are, in fact, one and the same thing with the 
National (or State) debt 1 But to remove from the mind 
of every creature ail doubt upon this point, to dissi- 
pate the mists in which we have so long been wander- 
ing, to the infinite amusement of those who invented 
these terms, let us take a plain, common sense view 
of one of these loaning transactions. Let us suppose 
that the government wants a loan, that is, wants to 
borrow money to the amount of a million of pounds 
sterling. It gives out its wishes to this effect, and 
after the usual ceremony upon such occasions, the 
loan is made, that is, the money is lent by Messrs. 
Muckworm and Company. We shall see bye and 
bye, when we come to talk more fully upon the sub- 



EQUALITY. 37 

ject of loans, what sort of a way it is in which 
Muckworm pays in the money so lent, and in what 
sort of money it is that he pays. But for the sake 
of simplicity in our illustration, we will suppose him 
to pay in real, good money, and to pay the whole mil- 
lion himself, at once. Well, what does Muckworm 
get in return 1 Why his name is written in a book, 
against his name is written that he is entitled to re- 
ceive interest for a million of money ; and thus it is 
that Muckworm puts a million of money into the 
funds ! Well, but you will say, what becomes of the 
money 1 why the government expends it to be sure ; 
what should become of it? Very few people borrow 
money for the purpose of locking it up in their 
drawers or chests. What ! then the money all 
vanishes, and nothing remains in lieu of it, but the 
lender's name, written in a book. Even so, my good 
neighbor, and this is the way that money is put into 
the funds. But the most interesting part of the trans- 
action remains to be described. Muckworm, who is 
as wise as he is rich, takes special care not to be a 
fundholder himself; and, as is always the case, he 
loses no time in selling his stock, that is to say, his right 
to receive the interest of the million of pounds. These 
funds, or stocks, as we have seen, have no bodily ex- 
istence either in the shape of money, or of bonds, or 
of certificates, or of any thing else that can be seen 
or touched. They have a being merely in name. 
They mean, in fact, a right to receive interest, and a 
man who is said to possess, or to have a thousand 
pounds worth of stock, possesses, in reality, nothing 
but the right of receiving the interest of a thousand 
pounds. When, therefore, Muckworm sells his mil- 
lion's worth of stock, he sells the right of receiving the 
interest upon the million of pounds which he has lent 

4* 



38 EQUALITY. 

to government. But the way in which sales of this 
sort are effected, is by parcelling the stock out to little 
purchasers, every one of whom buys as much as he 
likes; he has his name written in the book for so 
much, instead of the name of Muckworm and Com- 
pany, and when Muckworm has sold the whole, his 
name is crossed out, and the names of the persons to 
whom he has sold, remain in the book. And here it 
is that the thing comes home to our very bosoms, for 
our neighbor, farmer Greenhorn, who has all his life 
been working like a horse, in order to secure his chil- 
dren from the perils of poverty, having first bequeathed 
his farm to his son, sells the rest of his property, 
amounting to a couple of thousand pounds, and with 
the real good money, the fruit of his incessant toil 
and care, purchases two thousand pounds of Muck- 
worm's funds, or stocks, and leaves the said purchase 
to his daughter. And why does he do this ? The 
reason is, that he believes his daughter will always 
receive the interest of the two thousand pounds with- 
out any of the risk or trouble belonging to the rents 
of houses or land. Thus, neighbor Greenhorn is said 
to have put two thousand pounds in the funds, and 
thus his daughter, poor girl, is said to have her money 
in the funds. When the plain fact is, that Muck- 
worm's money has been spent by the government; that 
Muckworm has now the two thousand pounds of poor 
Grizzle Greenhorn, and that she, in return, has her 
name written in a book in the Bank Company's house, 
in consequence of which she is entitled to receive the 
interest of two thousand pounds, which brings us 
back to the point whence we started, and explains the 
whole art and mystery of making loans, and funds, 
and stocks, and national debts 7" 

I am justified in opposing the present iniquitous 



EQUALITY. 39 

banking system, because of the monopolies it gives 
rise to; but I am indifferent as to what kind of money 
shall be used, provided it will represent labor fairly 
and honestly. It is impossible for the reformer to 
remain quiet, and 

" To see the ghost of gold 
Take from toil a thousand fold 
More than its substance could, 
In the tyrannies of old." 

It is more than I can bear. I demand to see labor 
elevated to its proper position. More than this I do 
not require — with less I will never be satisfied. 



CHAPTER X. 

MACHINERY. 

Machinery is an element which has done much 
towards revolutionizing the habits of society during 
the last century ; an inquiry into its effects cannot be 
deemed out of place here. There are those who con- 
tend that machinery is one of the greatest blessings 
ever conferred upon the human race, and there are 
others who maintain the converse of this. I pause to 
inquire. — A machine is a complication of tools. A 
spinning mule, a power loom, or, a steam engine, are 
machines. A knife, a spade, a trowel, are tools ; but 
to avoid confusion, I will class all under the term 
machinery. Whenever a new labor-saving machine 
is brought into operation, if it is intended for the 
benefit of the laborer, then it is a good, but if it is 
intended that the machine shall work against the 
laborer, instead of for him, then it is an evil ! 
% t 



40 EQUALITY. 

On society emerging from a state of nature, the 
implements of husbandry must have been rude and 
disadvantageous compared to what they are now. 
Wooden spades, probably, were then used ; but. as 
man progressed, his knowledge of iron enabled him 
to substitute an iron one for the wood. Now this im- 
provement must have been a blessing to all, until a 
few made a monopoly of the earth, in which was 
placed the ore from which the instruments were 
formed ; then the law became partial and unjust. 
When man had again progressed, ploughs were in- 
vented : a further blessing, only liable to the same 
objections as the spades, because the monopolists say 
to the men who require spades and ploughs, " we will 
permit you to produce wealth with the spades and 
ploughs, on condition that you will give us two-thirds 
of your produce ;" and in such a condition are the 
producers placed, that they are forced to submit to 
the proposed terms. It is clear that the improve- 
ments in machinery have not been of equal benefit to 
all. I perceive around me the most wonderful im- 
provements in chemistry, in machinery, in steam, and 
in electricity ; I also behold large masses of human 
beings completely in the power and at the mercy of 
the possessors of these elements. I ask the reason ? 
and I find the following to be the only answer : be- 
cause man being born ignorant, those having the 
greatest amount of knowledge, combined together 
and monopolized the soil ; a monopoly of the earth 
led to a monopoly of its productions, and, conse- 
quently, to a monopoly of money ; a monopoly of 
money has led to a monopoly of education ; a mono- 
poly of education to a monopoly of the government, 
and learned professions, and thus established two 
separate, distinct, and antagonistic classes of men, 



EQUALITY. 41 

viz : an educated, oppressive class, on that side, and 
an ignorant, oppressed class, on this. But it is 
certainly my duty to place this question in the clearest 
possible manner before the people. 

Mr. Griphard has five hundred hands in his em- 
ploy ; there is full work for all. Each mechanic re- 
ceives eight dollars per week wages ? Labor-saving 
machinery is introduced, which supplants the labor 
of one hundred men, or in other words, as much 
work is now performed in four hours as before in 
five ! Now, what does Griphard do ? Does he 
reduce the labor of his wages slaves from ten to 
eight hours 1 or does he discharge one hundred men ? 
He does the latter. What is to become of the un- 
fortunate hundred men? "They can find employ- 
ment at other occupations," says Mr. M'Cant Hypo- 
crisy. As Sterne said, " of all the cant in this cant- 
ing world, the cant of hypocrisy is the most disgust- 
ing !" How can they find work at other trades, when 
in consequence of the improved machinery introduced 
into each, each is glutted with a redundancy of 
laborers. I again ask, what are the unwilling idlers 
to do ? They have several choices. — Firstly, they 
may beg, but they are too honorable to do that ; 
secondly, they may rob, but they are too honest to 
do that ; thirdly, they can walk about the streets until 
they themselves are in rags, their wives and children 
all but perishing of hunger; fourthly, and lastly, 
there is one more resource remaining, and that is, to 
go to the employer, and offer to work for whatever 
remuneration he may think proper to give ! Hitherto 
they have been receiving eight dollars per week each, 
but now the slaveholder says that they must work for 
seven ; they are forced to submit ; next for six ; again 
for five ; and so on until they only receive the merest 



42 EQUALITY. 

pittance for their labor. It is objected, " that even 
this state of things is to be preferred to a state of 
nature, and that men are much better olf now than 
they were formerly." This position is based upon 
error, because man is made more miserable by con- 
trast. In a state of nature all are equal, no one man 
has greater privileges than another ; if one man is 
clothed in skins, or has a wooden hut to shelter him, 
or has leaves for a bed, and a log of wood for a pil- 
low, he is the more content, because he knows that 
every other man is similarly situated. Is it so at the 
present time? No — nature and the rights of man 
are no longer acknowledged. The producer wit- 
nesses, that although he labors, he enjoys not the 
fruits of his own industry, therefore, it is that he is 
miserable. I do not wish it to be understood that I 
advocate a return to a state of nature ; but I do con- 
tend, that all our institutions should be based upon 
natural law. Nor must it be inferred that I am op- 
posed to machinery in itself — no, quite the contrary. 
I anxiously desire to see improvements take place in 
the construction of machines which will all but do 
away with manual labor in toto ; but then, I contend, 
that these inventions and discoveries ought to be for 
the advantage of all, instead of for the few. I wish 
to draw the attention of the people to the monstrous 
injustice, as to the deep planned system concocted to 
keep the surplus number of laborers under the con- 
trol of the employers. The land is held by the 
monopolists for the sole purpose of preventing the 
labor market being thinned. But I will treat of this 
in its proper place. 



EQUALITY. 43 



CHAPTER XI. 



TRADES UNIONS. 

The avarice of the capitalist has compelled the 
producers to associate to resist his unjust encroach- 
ments. I witness this state of things in all parts of 
Europe, and even in this republican country. The 
laborer is crushed to the earth in every quarter of the 
globe. Surely an examination of the cause of this 
is extremely important to my present purpose. I am, 
therefore, driven again to first principles. 

From what has been stated in the last chapter, it is 
evident that improved labor-saving machinery gives 
full scope to the employer's rapacity to reduce wages ; 
but there is another and a deadlier cause hidden im- 
mediately behind this : that cause is the monopoly of 
the earth ; at first monopolized by force, and con- 
tinued since by chicane, fraud, and violence. When 
the first violation of the rights of man took place, it 
laid the foundation of every species of villainy, from 
that time to the present. It has ended in making the 
bulk of mankind mere hewers of wood and drawers 
of water. In addition to this, it has rendered man 
ignorant of his rights, and almost afraid to reason ; 
it has made him cower and quail before his own free 
thoughts ; it has made slaves, and cowards, and hypo- 
crites of men. 

Yet let us ponder boldly, 'tis a base 

Abandonment of reason to resign 

Our right of thought ! This last and only place 

Of refuge ; this, at least, shall still be mine. 

Though from our birth the faculty divine 

Is chained and tortured, cabin'd, cribb'd, confined, 



44 EQUALITY. 

And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine 

Too brightly on the unprepared mind, 

The beams pour in, for time and skill will couch the blind. 

It has made them hate and distrust each other ; it 
has been the cause of all the wars and butcheries 
which have ever been waged ! O, could I depict the 
history of the past ages of man ; had I the mental 
power to exhibit the woe and want, the misery, the 
silent sufferings of the countless myriads of millions 
of men, who have descended, broken hearted, to the 
cold chambers of death, by the wrongs inflicted upon 
them by human pirates ! 

I have already stated that the base transactions of 
the capitalist compelled the operatives to associate to 
resist his encroachments, and to prevent him from 
entirely cheating them. As from time to time, im- 
proved labor-saving machinery was introduced into 
the various manufacturing departments, the number 
of surplus laborers thrown idle became greater, and 
in a proportionate ratio the competition by them 
to obtain a subsistence. The employers seized hold 
of the auspicious moment to reduce wages. This, 
as a natural consequence, caused the work people to 
combine to maintain wages above the point of starva- 
tion. Thus were formed associated bodies, under the 
name of trades unions. The best known plans were 
adopted by them to prevent a further reduction of 
wages. In some instances, partial success attended 
their efforts. Alas ! they oTtener failed than they 
succeeded. Any person conversant with the history 
of strikes and trades associations, will admit this fact. 
Look at the condition of the operatives of Great Bri- 
tain. Have they not " many a time and oft," struck 
against reductions ? but all in vain. They resisted 
to the best of their knowledge ; but each subsequent 



EQUALITY. 45 

struggle left them more powerless than before. Why 
was this? simply because they did not understand 
their true interests. 

If the soil of Great Britain belonged to the people, 
no employer could cheat them, because the moment 
that wages fell too low, that moment the workman 
could fall back upon his rights, and go, and occupy 
his quota of the land. There is the mainstay of the 
producers, and no legal swindler can defraud them 
of a solitary penny Moreover, as the law of equal 
exchanges would be in operation, the necessity for 
abstractors of wealth, in the shape of employers, 
would be done away with. The error which trades 
unions and other associated bodies have committed, is 
that they have been afraid to revert to first principles, 
lest politics should be introduced among them ; as if 
legislation did not affect directly the whole market of 
labor. Cannot the trades see that all the productions 
of labor are protected by law. If a tailor makes a 
coat, a hatter a hat, a cordwainer a pair of boots, all 
these articles are strictly guarded by law ; but labor 
is left entirely unprotected. Let the trades remem- 
ber this. 

Strikes, while they have done but little in arresting 
the onward march of the Juggernaut car of capital, 
yet under the circumstances, I justify them, because 
they acted according to the best of their judgments. 
Were it possible to furnish statistics of the millions 
upon millions of dollars expended upon turns-out, it 
would fill the mind with astonishment. The hand 
loom weavers alone, have lost fifty thousand dollars 
during the last five years, in Philadelphia. Had all 
the money and talent which have been expended 

I in strikes, been devoted to the establishment of the 
rights of man, and to the emancipation of labor, there 



46 EQUALITY. 

would be neither employers nor employees at the 
present time. It is truly lamentable to hear trades 
unionists talk of merely standing up for wages ! Why 
not go to the source of the evil ? This matter I will 
explain more fully in a future chapter. Taking all 
things into consideration, the working classes could 
not have acted otherwise than they have. When 1 
know that the landlords and usurers are interested in 
keeping them in ignorance, in the most Cimmerian 
darkness ; when I know that they send their emissa- 
ries among the producers, to distract and to divide 
them, theirs being the old maxim, " divide and con- 
quer ;" when I know that they care not how often the 
journeymen strike for wages only, instead of going 
to the root of the evil ; when I know that they have 
the law at their back, to support them in their aggres- 
sions upon labor ; when I know that they have em- 
ployed physical force, and shot, and hanged, and 
fined, and imprisoned working men for asking for " a 
fair day's labor, for a fair day's work." However, 
" the fiat has gone forth :" " Mene, mene, tekel, 
upharsin," is upon the wall, "the blood-cemented 
thrones of landlordism and usury" are tottering, and a 
brighter and a better day is dawing over the degraded 
and down-trodden poletarian. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CAPITAL AND LABOR. 

Political economists have given different names 
to different kinds of capital, " exempli gratia" "real 
estate, fixed capital, floating capital ;" this all amounts 






EQUALITY. 47 

to the same thing, which is, that " labor is the source 
of all wealth." The economists have mystified this 
important question under a cart load of technical 
terms, and designedly, too, to prevent the workman 
from inquiring into the causes of his own degrada- 
tion. Why have they done so ? the answer is easy 
to solve : because they wrote for and were paid by 
the capitalist. Capital, or wealth, or property, is the 
accumulated savings of labor. I here quote from 
" Bray's Labor's Wrongs and Labor's Remedies :" 

" The poverty and misery of the masses of all 
nations have for ages been notorious. It was easy to 
make the oppressed believe, ere mind had touched 
them with its glittering spark, that their condition in 
society, as the slaves and inferiors of their fellow 
men, was a necessary consequence of their existence, 
and therefore, unavoidable and irremediable. But as 
time progressed, knowledge spread, and the sons of 
labor began not only to disbelieve the story of their 
inferiority, but likewise to attempt to throw off the 
yoke of the merciless enemy, which had so long held 
them in thraldom. The frequent and vigorous efforts 
which have been made for this purpose, during the 
last half century, have not been unheeded by the op- 
posite party ; and they have discovered the necessity 
of supporting their pretensions to supremacy and 
wealth, by stronger proofs than mere assertion. To 
this end have certain individuals examined the 
groundwork and tendency of the existing system, and 
their labors have ended in the erection of what is 
called the science of Political Economy. The 
founders of 'this science have gone to first principles,; 
they have reasoned from indisputable facts, and they 
have proved clearly and convincingly, that under the 
present system there is no hope for the working man, 



48 EQUALITY. 

that he is indeed the bondman of the man of money ! 
But let not the unjust man and the extortioner, wherever 
he may be, exult in the immensity of his wealth and 
the unconquerableness of his power. Let not-a toil- 
worn and impoverished people, wherever they may be 
think that their doom is fixed, and that deliverance 
will never come. That which is true of particular 
principles, under certain influences, is not necessarily 
true of the same principles, under all circumstances ; 
nor is that poverty and degradation which is the por- 
tion of the working man, under the present social 
system, a necessary concomitant of his existence, 
under any and every social system. This shall be 
proved by the same principle, and the same mode erf 
argument by which the political economists, from not 
going far enough, have proved the contrary. By 
thus fighting them upon their own ground, and with 
their own weapons, we shall avoid that senseless 
clatter respecting « visionaries' and ' theorists,' with 
which they are so ready to assail all who dare move 
one step from that beaten track, which, ' by au- 
thority,' has been pronounced to be the only right 
one. Before the conclusions arrived at by such a 
course of proceeding can be overthrown, the econo- 
mists must unsay, or disprove those established truths 
or principles on which their own arguments are 
founded. ' Society,' it has been affirmed by a poli- 
tical economist, ? both in its rudest form, and in its 
most refined and complicated relations, is nothing but 
a sytem of exchanges. An exchange is a transac- 
tion in which both the parties who make the ex- 
change, are benefited, and consequently, society is a 
state presenting an uninterrupted succession of ad- 
vantages for all its members.' It has been to make 
society what it is here represented to be 'an uninter- 



EQUALITY. 49 

rupted succession of Advantages for all its members,' 
that the efforts of the truly great and good in all ages 
have been directed. Society is not thus universally 
advantageous to all within its pale, nor has it ever yet 
been so ! Ask the producers of wealth, the despised, 
the toil-worn, the oppressed working men, of any age 
or nation, if soeiety was ever for them an * uninter- 
rupted succession of advantages.' Could their voices 
arise from the grave, could they tell us the sickening 
tale of their wrongs and their miseries, how wild 
would be their wailings, how terrible their impreca- 
tions 1 But even were history silent as to their fate, 
experience is a perpetual remembrancer to the men 
of the present day, and they cannot change their 
situation for a better one, nor will they ever have a 
proper hold upon society, until first principles are uni- 
versally acted upon; until we attend to those condi- 
tions which the political economists themselves have 
confessed to be < necessary for the production of 
utility, or of what is essential to the support, comfort, 
and pleasures of human life.' " * And these condi- 
tions are, 

" ' First. That there shall be labor. 

" ' Second. That there shall be accumulations of 
former labor, or capital. 

" ' Third. That there shall be exchanges.' 

" These three conditions, be it remembered, are 
those laid down by the economists. There is no re- 
servation made, no distinction of any particular per- 
sons, or classes, with respect to whom these condi- 
tions shall or shall not have reference. They are 
applied to society at large, and from their nature, 
cannot exempt any individual, or any class, from 
their operation. We must, therefore, take the condi- 
tions as they are, and apply them with their advan- 

5** 



50 EQUALITY. 

tages and disadvantages to all alike. Had these con- 
ditions been fulfilled by men as they ought to have 
been, there would now be no occasion for forming 
associations, or trades unions, to protect the em- 
ployed from the merciless exactions of the employers. 
But these conditions have been neglected, or only 
partially observed, and the present condition of the 
working man, and society at large, is the conse- 
quence. From our habits and prejudices it is difficult 
to discover truth, or first principles; but it is still 
more difficult to apply these principles properly, or 
even to conceive that they may be acted upon. First 
principles are always general in their application, not 
partial. The law, ; thou shalt labor,' rests alike 
on all created beings. To this great law, from the 
minutest animalculse, in a drop of water, to the most 
stupendous whale which dives beneath the waves of 
ocean, there are naturally, and there should be arti- 
ficially, no exception ! Man only can escape this 
law, and from its nature, it can be evaded by one man 
only at the expense of another. The law itself can 
never be destroyed or abrogated ; it naturally and 
perpetually presses equally upon all men ; upon the 
capitalist as well as the working man, and if one 
man, or class of men, escape its pressure, the sum 
total of its force will bear upon some other man, or 
class. Jt is an absolute condition of existence, 'that 
there shall be labor.' The word • labor? with most 
men has unpleasant ideas associated with it. To 
many it signifies raggedness, or ignorance, or degra- 
dation, aching bones, mental and bodily lassitude, a 
gnawing dissatisfaction with every thing around them, 
and a half weariness of life. To destroy the inexpli- 
cable feelings which excessive labor thus creates, the 
overwrought working man wants, and he must have 



EQUALITY. 51 

some mental or bodily restorative, to supply this 
waste of vital energy. But the present institutions of 
society offer him nothing of the kind. There is 
nothing around him to raise up his prostrated soul, 
and enlarge, and purify the noble germ within him ; 
for every thing he hears, and sees, and feels, tends to 
enforce upon him a sense of inferiority and abase- 
ment. No wonder that his manhood droops and 
withers ; that he seeks for the momentary relaxation 
afforded by debauchery ; that he soon loses even the 
desire to improve his very few hours of leisure, and 
becomes content to plod through life, not as a man, but 
as an animal, eating, drinking, and working, to the 
end of his days ! The almighty principle of mind, if 
unused and unimproved, sickens, and degenerates, 
and dies ! Labor, like every thing else, is good when 
used legitimately ; but becomes prejudicial when 
abused. It has hitherto been regarded as a curse, 
and it has, to many, been an actual curse, only 
because men have not used it rightly. The great 
mass of mankind has labored to excess, and like 
every other excess, labor has excited little else than 
aversion and loathing ! Labor ought to raise none 
of these unpleasant emotions, nor would it do so, if 
taken in moderation. If we understood things rightly, 
we should consider labor a blessing rather than a 
curse ; for it is the one great preservative of intel- 
lectual and corporeal health. But with strange inat- 
tention to the nature and uses of things, the world at 
large stamps labor, which is the parent of every en- 
joyment, as not only unpleasant, but derogatory. 
The working man must not sit with the idler, or the 
capitalist, nor must he eat with them, or associate 
with them. The pot house and the hovel are allotted 
to the one, the ball room and the palace are usurped 



52 EQUALITY. 

by the other. To have ever honestly earned a shil- 
ling, is, under the present system, and by those who 
have perched themselves upon the pinnacles of that 
system, considered almost as a moral stain upon a 
man ! All labor must come from some parties, and 
the advocate for justice, and for equal rights, cannot 
but exclaim, ' Let those only cry out against work- 
ing, who can live without eating and drinking, for 
none but such were intended to be idle !' Labor is 
neither more nor less than labor, and one kind of em- 
ployment is not more honorable or dishonorable, than 
another, although all descriptions of labor may not 
appear of equal value to society at large. Such in- 
equality of value apparently, is no argument for in- 
equality of rewards ; and when we have examined 
the subject in all its bearings and relations, we_ shall 
find that it is just and reasonable that labor should 
be universal. 

44 All kinds of labor are so mixed up together, and 
so dependent on each other, that the institution of in- 
equality of reward, involves more actual pecuniary 
injustice than can possibly have existence under a 
system which rewards all men alike, and all trades 
for a similar application of labor. While the moral 
and physical evils which experience has proved to be 
inseparable from the present system of inequality, 
the uncharitableness, the insatiable greediness, the 
bloodshed, the wrongs of every kind which the 
records of three thousand vears are filled with, can 
have little or no existence in connection with equality 
of reward for equal labor. Not only are the greatest 
advantages, but strict justice also, is on the side of a 
system of equality. It must be confessed by all men, 
that the most important discovery or invention, unless 
labor be applied to bring forth its results, is just as 



EQUALITY. 53 

useless as the merest trifle. Thus, although it may 
be said, that he who invents a steam engine, confers 
a greater benefit upon society than the man who 
makes it ; and that he who makes it, does a greater 
service than he who merely fills it with water, 
and kindles a fire under it, yet in reality, the labor 
of the last man is just as necessary to produce the 
effects desired, as the labor of the first. The draw- 
ing, or model of the inventer, is of no value until 
seconded by the labor of the engine maker, and the 
perfected engine, until it be put in motion by fire and 
water, is as worthless as the mere model. The 
results to be produced by the instrumentality of the 
engine, are thus, dependent, and equally dependent 
upon the labor of all the parties concerned. Every 
man is a link, and an indispensable link, in the chain 
of effects, the beginning of which is but an idea, and 
the end, perhaps, the production of a piece of cloth. 
Thus, although we may entertain different feelings 
towards the several parties, it does not follow that one 
should be better paid than another. The inventor will 
ever receive, in addition to his just pecuniary reward, 
that which genius only can obtain from us — the tri- 
bute of our admiration. Under the present social sys- 
tem — and its high and low employments, equal remu- 
neration for equal labor, is impracticable." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

capital and labor. — [Continued.) 

" In the second place, ( There shall be accumula- 
tions of former labor, or capital.' We all know that 



54 EQUALITY. 

accumulations are no more than the unconsumed pro- 
ducts of former labor — whether houses, machinery, or 
ships, or any thing else that is useful, or that can 
assist us in creating more wealth. All these things 
are capital. Had the first and succeeding genera- 
tions of men consumed all that they produced, had 
they left their successors neither houses, tools, nor 
any kind of wealth, we should now, necessarily, have 
been as they were, half starved and half clothed 
savages. It is in the power of every generation, 
even under the most unfavorable circumstances, to 
leave the world richer in respect to accumulations 
than they found it ; and it is their duty to do so. 

" The principle of accumulation, or saving, seems 
to be instinctive in man, for it has never yet been en- 
tirely lost sight of, although it has been acted upon 
ignorantly, and with little or no knowledge of the im- 
portant results connected with its fulfilment. We 
have inherited the greater part of our present accu- 
mulations from preceding generations, and merely hold 
them, as it were, in trust, for the benefit of ourselves 
and successors ; for the men of the future have as 
good a title to them as we have. Every generation 
thus receives a greater or less amount of accumulated 
wealth from those which preceded it, therefore, in 
equity, every generation is bound to provide for its 
successors, in at least the same ratio as itself was 
provided for, and as population is ever on the increase, 
so likewise ought accumulations to be always on the 
increase. That which applies to a generation as a 
whole, applies also to every individual of such gene- 
ration, and as there ought to be national accumula- 
tion, there ought likewise to be individual accumula- 
tion ; for the first is dependent on the last. The 
political economists with the cold-blooded and calcu- 



EQUALITY. 55 

lating voracity, induced by the present system, tell 
the productive classes that they must accumulate, that 
they must depend upon their own exertions ; but how- 
ever good the advice may be in principle, it is, while 
the working man is pressed into the earth by existing 
usages, no more than the addition of an insult to an 
injury. They cannot accumulate, and the reason is, 
not because they are idle ; not because they are in- 
temperate ; not because they are ignorant ; but be- 
cause those accumulations which have been handed 
down for the benefit of the present generation, as a 
whole, are usurped, and their advantages exclusively 
enjoyed by particular individuals and classes. 

" The third and last condition of the economists is, 
• That there shall be exchanges.' An exchange is 
defined to be a transaction between two parties, in 
which each gives to the other something which he 
has not so much desire for as he has for the article 
which he receives in return. Thus, every man who 
works for hire, exchanges his labor for a certain sum 
of money, because he would rather work, and receive 
the money than . remain idle and starve. The capi- 
talist, in like manner, would rather give his money 
for a certain quantity of labor than live upon it as 
long as it should last, for he sells, or exchanges the 
produce of such labor for a greater sum than the 
labor originally costs him, and by these means is 
enabled, not only to live in idleness, but to in- 
crease his store of wealth at the same time ! The 
capitalists, as we have all seen, call this species of 
exchange, « a transaction in which both the parties 
who make the exchange are benefited, consequently, 
society is a state, presenting an uninterrupted succes- 
sion of advantages for all its members.' The subject 
of exchanges is one on which too much attention can- 



56 EQUALITY. 

not be bestowed by the productive classes ; for it is 
more by the infraction of this third condition, by the 
capitalist, than by all others united, that inequality 
of condition is produced and maintained, and the 
working man offered up, bound hand and foot, a 
sacrifice upon the altar of Mammon ! From the 
very nature of labor and exchange, strict justice not 
only requires that all exchangers should be mutually, 
but that they should likewise be equally benefited. 
Men have only two things which they can exchange 
with each other, namely, labor and the produce of 
labor ; therefore, let them exchange as they will, they 
merely give, as it were, labor .for labor. If a just 
system of exchanges were acted upon, the value of 
all articles would be determined by the entire cost of 
production, and equal values should always ex- 
change for equal values. If, for instance, it take a 
hatter one day to make a hat, and a shoemaker the 
same time to make a pair of shoes, supposing the 
material used by each to be of the same value, and 
they exchange these articles with each other, they 
are not only mutually, but equally benefited ; the ad- 
vantage derived by either party cannot be a disad- 
vantage to the other, as each has given the same 
amount of labor, and the materials made use of by each 
were of the same value. But if the hatter should 
obtain two pair of shoes for one hat, time and mate- 
rial being as before, the exchange would clearly be 
an unjust one. The hatter would defraud the shoe- 
maker of one day's labor, and were the former to act 
thus in all his exchanges, he would receive for the 
labor of half a year the product of some other 
person's whole year ; therefore, the gain of the first 
would be necessarily a loss to the last. We have, 
heretofore, acted upon no other than this most unjust 



EQUALIT*. 57 

system of exchanges, the workmen have given the 
labor of a whole year to the capitalist in exchange 
for the value of only half a year, and from this, 
and not from the assumed inequality of bodily and 
mental powers in individuals, has arisen the in- 
equality of wealth and power which at present exists 
around us. 

"It is an inevitable condition of inequality of ex- 
changes, of buying at one price and selling at an- 
other, that capitalists shall continue to be capitalists, 
and working men be working men ; the one, a class 
of tyrants, and the other, a class of slaves, to all 
eternity. By equality of exchanges, however, no 
able bodied individual can exist, as thousands now do, 
unless he fulfil that condition of the economist, ' that 
there shall be labor ;' nor can one class appropriate 
the labor of another class, as the capitalists now ap- 
propriate and enjoy the wealth which the powers of 
the working man daily call into existence. It is in- 
equality of exchanges which enables one class to live 
in luxury and idleness, and dooms another to inces- 
sant toil ! By the present unjust and iniquitous sys- 
tem, exchanges are not only not mutually beneficial 
to all parties, as the political economists have asserted, 
but it is plain, from the very nature of an exchange, 
that there is in most transactions between the capi- 
talist and the producer, after the first remove, no ex- 
change whatever. An exchange implies the giving 
of one thing for another ; but what is it that the capi- 
talist, whether he be manufacturer or landed proprie- 
tor, gives in exchange for the labor of the working 
man? The capitalist gives no labor, for he does not 
work, he gives no capital, for his store of wealth is 
being perpetually augmented. It is certain that the 
capitalist can only have his labor, or his capital, to 

6 



58 EQUALITY. 

exchange against the labor of the working man ; and 
if, as we daily see, the capitalist gives no labor, and 
his original stock of capital does not decrease, he can- 
not, in the nature of things, make an exchange with 
any thing that belongs to himself. The whole trans- 
action plainly shows that the capitalists and proprie- 
tors do no more than give the working man for his 
labor of one week, a part of the wealth which they 
obtained from him the week before, which just 
amounts to giving him nothing for something, and is 
a method of doing business, which however consonant 
with the established usages of the present system, is 
by no means compatible with a working man's ideas 
of justice ! The wealth which the capitalist appears 
to give in exchange for the workman's labor, was 
generated, neither by the labor nor the riches of the 
capitalist, but it was originally obtained by the labor 
of the workman, and it is still daily taken from him 
by a fraudulent system of unequal exchanges. The 
whole transaction between the producer and the capi- 
talist, is a palpable deception, a mere farce ; it is, in 
fact, in thousands of instances, no other than a bare- 
faced, though legalized robbery, by means of which 
the capitalists and proprietors continue to fasten them- 
selves upon the productive classes, and suck from 
them their whole substance ! Those who assist not 
in production, can never justly be exchangers, for 
they have nothing on which to draw, and therefore, 
nothing which they can exchange. No man pos- 
sesses any natural and inherent wealth within him- 
self; he has merely a capability of laboring ; there- 
fore, if a man possess any created wealth, any capi- 
tal, and have never made use of this capability, and 
have never labored, the wealth which he holds in pos- 
session, cannot rightly belong to him. It must belong 



EQUALITY. 59 

to some persons who have created it by labor, for capi- 
tal is not self-existent. The vast accumulations now 
in" America, " therefore, as they are neither the pro- 
ductions of the present race of capitalists, nor their 
predecessors, and were never given them in ex- 
change for any such labor, do not belong to the capi- 
talist, either on the principle of creation, or the prin- 
ciple of exchange ! Nor are they theirs by right of 
heirship ; for, having been produced nationally, they 
can only be inherited by the nation, as a whole. 
Thus, view the matter as we will, there is to be seen 
no towering pile of wealth that has not been scraped 
together by rapacity; no transaction between the 
man of labor and the man of money, that is not cha- 
racterized by fraud and injustice." 

I will add no comment of mine to this reasoning, 
but continue to quote from the same author regarding 
exchanges. 



CHAPTER XIV. . 

EXCHANGES. 

" It has been shown by the economists themselves, 
that these conditions are absolutely necessary to the 
existence of human society, namely, 'That there 
shall be labor — that there shall be accumulations of 
labor, the produce of labor, or capital — and that there 
shall be exchanges.' It has likewise been demon- 
strated, that these conditions, from their very nature, 
and the relation in which men in society stand with 
regard to each other, can be evaded by one individual, 
or one class, only at the expense of other individuals, 



60 EQUALITY. 

or classes ; and it follows, therefore, that every man 
commits a wrong upon some part of the community, 
if he render not to society an equivalent equal to the 
benefits which he receives. It has been deduced also, 
from a consideration of the intention and end of 
society, not only that all men should labor, and 
thereby become exchangers, but that equal values 
should always exchange for equal values ; and that 
as the gain of one man ought never to be the loss of 
another, value should ever be determined by the cost 
of production. But we have seen, that under the 
present arrangements of society, all men do not labor ; 
that all exchangers, therefore, are not equally be- 
nefitted; that the gain of the capitalist and rich 
man is always the loss of the workmen ; that this 
result will invariably take place, and the poor man 
be left entirely at the mercy of the rich man, under 
any and every form of government, so long as there 
is inequality of exchanges ; and that equality of ex- 
changes can only be insured under social arrange- 
ments, in which labor is universal, and where the 
remuneration is equal to the labor. A few more ex- 
amples of the working of the present system, will 
show us more clearly the utter fatuity of attempting 
to remedy evils which are inherent in the very con- 
stitution of society, in any other manner than by a 
complete reconstruction of the social system. 

" There are in the" United States, " at the present 
moment, many thousands of persons who have toiled 
hard all their lives, and yet who are not possessed of 
property of the value of one year's labor, and there 
are also many thousands who have never per- 
formed one month's labor, and who, nevertheless, 
are now possessed of wealth of the value of" thou- 
sands of dollars. "How came these men in posses- 



EQUALITY. '61 

sion of this capital? They have never labored, and 
yet they are not only enabled to live without working, 
but their wealth increases every year. The attain- 
ment of wealth by conquest, is so glaringly unjust, 
that all claims founded upon it, stand self-condemned 
at once, and that any individual has a right to take 
to himself, or to grant to another, one single foot of 
earth, has been denied and disproved already ; for 
the earth is the common property of all its inhabit- 
ants, and each one has a just claim not to a parti- 
cular part of the earth itself, but merely to that 
wealth which his labor can compel the earth to yield 
him. Those capitalists who profess to have acquired 
their riches by deriving a profit from capital through 
the instrumentality of unequal exchanges, have a 
claim but one degree more just than the claim by con- 
quest. Our daily experience teaches us, that if we 
take a slice from a loaf, the slice never grows on 
again, the loaf is but an accumulation of slices, and 
the more we cut off it, the less will there remain to 
be eaten. Such is the case with the loaf of the work- 
ing man; but that of the capitalist follows not this 
rule. His loaf continually increases instead of dimin- 
ishing ; with him it is cut and come again forever. 
Every workman knows that if he saves a few" dol- 
lars, " and come to be ill, or out of employment, he 
can live only for a certain time upon this money. It 
is his capital, the accumulated produce of his own 
industry, and it dwindles away until the whole is con- 
sumed. And so likewise, if exchanges were equal, 
would the wealth of the present capitalists gradually 
go from them to the working classes; every shilling 
that the rich man spent would leave him a shilling 
less rich ; for, from the nature of things, it must fol- 
low, that if a part be taken from a whole, that which 

6* 



62" EQUALITY. 

remains as a whole, miJst be less than it was before 
such a part was taken from it ! 

" With respect to the acquisition of wealth by in- 
heritance, it requires but little reflection to convince 
us, that past circumstances have rendered it impossi- 
ble for any member of the productive class to have 
accumulated, by the most incessant hoarding of the 
produce of his own industry, wealth amounting to 
one-fiftieth part of such vast accumulations as so 
many thousands of individual capitalists and proprie- 
tors now hold. It is evident, when we take all things 
into consideration, that it would require the handing 
down of the savings of many generations of a work- 
ing man's family, to amount to the sum of even" five 
thousand dollars, " and that this could be done only 
by a combination of favorable circumstances, such as 
would not have fallen to the lot of one family in a 
million. From the very conditions laid down by the 
political economists, < That there shall be labor, and 
accumulations, and exchanges,' it follows, that there 
can be no exchanges without accumulations — no ac- 
cumulations without labor. This latter condition 
alone condemns, at once, the cause of the capitalist, 
and shows the injustice and worthlessness of the 
tenure by which he holds his wealth. There are ac- 
cumulations, and therefore, there has been labor on 
the part of certain individuals, or certain classes. If 
the capitalists have created the accumulations they 
hold, the accumulations are theirs, by right of crea- 
tion, and if they have obtained them by exchanging 
for them other accumulations of equal value, they are 
theirs by right of exchange ; but the great mass of 
capitalists and proprietors, have never labored in the 
business of production, and even had they been 
laborers, they never could have created the wealth in 



EQUALITY. 63 

their possession, for their physical and intellectual 
powers, and their consequent capability of production 
is not superior to that of the great body of working 
men. How comes it to pass, then, that he who is idle 
is rich, while those who are industrious, toil on in 
perpetual poverty 1 How is it that the wealth of the 
working man remains stationary, or decreases, while 
that of the capitalist yearly increases ? How is it 
that the rising man of profit rides upon his horse, 
while the workman walks ; the horse gives place to 
the gig, the gig to the chariot, and as the rich man 
grows more rich, he grows more lazy, and performs 
less work ? The anomaly, and the wrong connected 
with it, we have seen, arises solely from unequal ex- 
changes ; for, as cinder the present system, every 
working man gives to an employer at least six day's 
labor for an equivalent worth only four or five day's 
labor, the gains of the last man are necessarily the 
losses of the first man. Every fortune, therefore, 
acquired under this system by means of trade, every 
accumulation of the capitalists, or employers, as a 
body, is derived from the unsurrendered earnings of 
the working class, or persons employed, and wherever 
one man thus becomes rich, he does so only on con- 
dition that many men shall remain poor. All men 
cannot become rich in the common acceptation of the 
term ; but there is no necessity for one human being 
to be poor. Thus, in whatever light examined, 
whether as a gift, or as an individual accumulation, 
or an exchange, or an inheritance, there is proof upon 
proof, that there is a flaw in the rich man's title> 
which takes away, at once, its very show of justice 
and its value. The present wealth of the country 
was not given to the ancestors of these men, some 
centuries since, for it did not then exist, and if any 



64 EQUALITY. 

could -have been so given, it would long since have 
been consumed ; it has not been acquired by succes- 
sive accumulations of rich men, for, as a class, they 
have never been laborers, and even if they had 
labored, and labored hard, they could not have 
amassed so much wealth ; it has not been obtained 
by equal exchanges, for, independent of a man's 
labor, equal exchanges will not make him rich; it 
has not been acquired by inheritance, by the handing 
down of savings from one generation of working men 
to another, for circumstances of every kind have been 
unfavorable to its transmission, as well as to its ac- 
cumulation; but this wealth has all been derived from 
the bones and sinews of the working classes, during 
successive ages, and it has been Uken from them by 
the fraudulent and slavery-creating system of unequal 
exchanges. The principle of unequal exchanges is 
the very life and soul of the present social system, 
and the inequality of every kind which is inseparable 
from it. Wherever this principle is acted upon, a 
man's riches, or his success in life, will be dependent 
neither upon his morality, nor his mental, nor corpo- 
real faculties. Every individual has an undisputed 
right to the possession and enjoyment of the wealth 
which his industry and frugality will enable him to 
accumulate ; but let a working man, under the pre- 
sent system, be as industrious and as frugal as pos- 
sible, the proceeds of his labor will never make him 
rich, nor enable him to live for any length of time 
without working. If he would become wealthy, he 
must change his position in society, and instead of 
exchanging his own labor, must become a capitalist, 
or exchanger of the labor of other people, and thus, 
by plundering others in the same manner as he him- 
self was plundered, through the medium of unequal 



EQUALITY. 65 

exchanges, he will be able to acquire great gains from 
the small losses of other people. 

" The present system, wherever it enriches a work- 
ing man, does it thus. — He has accumulated or bor- 
rowed, we will suppose, a hundred" dollars, "and 
takes his station as a capitalist, he < speculates' with 
this money ; that is, he makes an unjust and unequal 
exchange: he purchases a commodity at one price, 
and without adding any increased value to it by his 
own labor, he sells the commodity for double what it 
originally cost him, and thus he becomes rich at the 
expense of others. Or, again, he procures a certain 
quantity of labor for his hundred" dollars, " and he 
sells the product of such labor for two hundred" dol- 
lars. " Now, if the labor was originally worth two 
hundred" dollars, " and this newly-created capitalist 
gave but one hundred for it, he has clearly defrauded 
his workmen of one half their just due ; and if the 
labor was worth only one hundred" dollars, " and the 
capitalist has obtained two hundred for it, it is equally 
clear, that he has defrauded the parties with whom 
he made the second exchange ; for, he only gave 
them one hundred for their two hundred, all the gain 
thus acquired by the capitalist, whether from the first, 
or second exchange, is extracted entirely from the 
productive classes. 

" Society at large only consists of two parties, those 
who work and those who do nothing. From the 
nature of the case, the idlers cannot have been de- 
frauded by the unequal exchange, for, as they do not 
labor, they can have nothing of their own to ex- 
change, so that the whole gain, the whole accumu- 
lated profit, or interest, or whatever else it may be 
called, which every capitalist receives under the pre- 
sent system, is taken from the producers at large, 



66 EQUALITY. 

from the very working classes of the community, for 
they only have wherewith to exchange, and that is 
their labor, and the produce of such labor ! The 
capitalist, by thus continuing to ' exchange,' is shortly 
in possession of as many thousands as he originally 
had hundreds, and this, too, with little or no labor on 
his part, until at length, he retires to enjoy himself 
on his 'honest gains!' The sons follow the course 
of the father ; they live in luxury and idleness, and 
so they become parents, and breed away, ad infini- 
tum, a race of c capitalists.' Such is the origin of 
the great majority of petty capitalists who now grind 
the working classes to the dust ! But of all the vast 
wealth thus obtained by unequal exchanges, it is self- 
evident that the original stock, only the hundred" dol- 
lars, " or whatever it may be, is all that each capi- 
talist is justly entitled to. The hundred" dollars 
" belongs to the capitalist, it has, we will suppose, 
been the produce of his own industry, and to it, there- 
fore, he is justly entitled. But here the justice of his 
claim ceases, for all the wealth which this sum is in- 
strumental in producing by means of the labor of 
others, belongs to others, and not to the owner of the 
hundred" dollars. " This money possesses not within 
itself the power of locomotion, or any other action ; 
it is no more than the representative of a certain 
quantity of produce, and can, of itself, do nothing ; 
it is neither worn, nor broken, nor deteriorated, after 
it has been thus instrumental in production. The 
capitalist receives it back in the same state as he lent 
it out, he is not one" cent "less rich from the circum- 
stance of others having made use of his money ; 
therefore, having lost nothing, he is, in strict justice, 
entitled to no compensation, to nothing except a re- 
ward for his labor, equal to that which any other 



EQUALITY. 67 

man receives for an equal expenditure of labor. The 
political economists and capitalists, have written and 
printed many books, to impress upon the working 
man the fallacy that « the gain of the capitalist is not 
the loss of the producer.' We are told that labor 
cannot move one step without capital, that capital is 
as a shovel to the man who digs, that capital is just 
as necessary to production as labor itself is. The 
working man knows all this, for its truth is daily 
brought home to him ; but this mutual dependency 
between capital and labor has nothing to do with the 
relative position of the capitalist and the working 
man, nor does it show that the former should be 
maintained by the latter. Capital is but so much un- 
consumed produce, and that which is at this moment 
in being, exists independent of and is in no way iden- 
tified with any particular individual, or class. Labor 
is the parent of it on the one side, and mother Earth 
on the other, and were every capitalist, and every rich 
man in the" United States, " to be annihilated to- 
morrow, not a single particle of wealth, or capital, 
would disappear with them ; nor would the nation 
itself, be less wealthy, even to the amount" of a cent. 
" It is the capital, and not the capitalist, that is essen- 
tial to the operations of the producer." 



CHAPTER XV. 

exchanges. — ( Continued.) 

"From these considerations, then, it is apparent, 
that whatever is gained to capital is likewise gained 
to labor ,• that every increase of the former tends to 



68 EQUALITY. 

diminish the toil of the latter, and that, therefore, 
every loss to capital, must also be a loss to labor. 
This truth, though long since observed by the poli- 
tical economists, has never yet been fairly stated by 
them. They have ever identified capital with one 
class of the community, and labor with another class, 
although the two powers have naturally, and should 
have artificially, no such connection. The econo- 
mists always attempt to make the prosperity, if not 
the very existence of the working man, dependent 
upon the condition of maintaining the capitalist in 
idleness and luxury. They would not have the 
workman to eat a meal, until he has produced two, 
one for himself, and the other for his master ; the 
latter receiving his portion indirectly, by unequal ex- 
changes ! By thus dividing society into two classes, 
and keeping separate the labor and the capital, the 
economists and capitalists, are enabled, by unequal 
exchanges, to maintain the supremacy of their class 
over the working class, and then they infamously and 
blasphemously, tell the latter, that this state of things 
has been so ordained by the Almighty ! Under the 
present social system, capital and labor, the shovel 
and the digger, are two separate and antagonistic 
powers, and such they always have been, and ever 
must be, when existing in connection with particular 
individuals and classes. 

" Although capital and labor are intimately con- 
nected with and dependent upon each other, and both 
work together for a common end — that end is pro- 
duction, and not the exaltation of one man and the 
abasement of another ! In connection with particular 
individuals and classes, however, capital and labor 
can have no community of interest ; they will ever 
be in perpetual hostility, for the gain of the capitalist 



EQUALITY. 69 

is always the loss of the working man, and the 
poverty and toil of the last is a necessary conse- 
quence of the wealth and idleness of the first. Of 
all the wealth now existing" in the United States, 
" worth, as it is, of so many thousands of millions 
of" dollars, "and produced, as it has been, by the 
labor of the productive classes ; of all this immense 
wealth, the share which the working man holds and 
enjoys, is but as an ounce to a ton, a drop to an 
ocean, in comparison to that which the present social 
system has enabled the capitalists to obtain posses- 
sion of. The share of the working man has never 
yet been greater, and never will be greater, even if 
millions upon millions be annually produced, so long 
as the principle of unequal exchanges is tolerated ; 
for, this alone will maintain the present division of 
society into capitalists and producers, and rear the 
wealth and the supremacy of the one upon the poverty 
and the degradation of the other ! When the work- 
man has produced a thing, it is his no longer ; it 
belongs to the capitalist, it has been conveyed from 
the one to the other, by the unseen magic of unequal 
exchanges. The working man, notwithstanding all 
his toil, finding himself as poor as ever, forthwith 
labors away to produce more wealth, and this again, 
is conveyed to the capitalist in the same manner as 
the first was. And thus oppressed and plundered, 
must the working classes toil on to the end of the 
present social system ; for the capitalists and the em- 
ployers, as such, will always have interests opposed 
to those of the producers at large. It is the interest 
of the working man to acquire as much wealth as 
possible by means of his own labor ; it is the interest 
of the employer to acquire as much wealth as possible 
by means of profit, or the labor of other people ; and 

7 



70 EQUALITY. 

as all profit must come from labor, and as the wealth 
of the capitalist is but an accumulation of profit, the 
gain of the capitalist must be the loss of the working 
man. The very nature of the * exchange' which 
takes place between the two parties, will inevitably 
perpetuate the wealth of the one and the poverty of 
the other, and thus effectually subvert all equality of 
rights and laws, whatever may be the form of govern- 
ment established, and whatever may be the merely 
political power placed in the hands of the working 
man. Under the present social system, the capitalists 
and employers are not only distinct from, but they 
are in a manner independent of the-working classes. 
They have the whole control of the operations of 
trade ; at their fiat production goes forward, or lan- 
guishes, or ceases altogether; the working man is 
made comparatively comfortable, or he starves by 
inches ! In all trades, or professions, the capitalist, 
or employer, receives double, or quadruple remunera- 
tion for single work, or for no work at all. This is 
the great source of labor's wrongs. 

" The essential principles of a- well constituted 
social system, equal exchanges, is now unheeded, 
and the working men of all trades, are exposed to 
every wrong and every injustice which the rapacity 
of their fellow men can inflict upon them ! There is 
no social or governmental wrong which is uncon- 
nected with the neglect of the great principle of equal 
exchanges, or equal remuneration for equal labor; so 
long as there is inequality of remuneration, there 
must be inequality of exchanges, there will be in- 
equality of wealth and condition, there will be evasion 
of labor by some classes, at the«expense of other 
classes, there will be rich and poor, there will be 
tyrants and slaves ! The whole question of remune- 



EQUALITY. 71 

ration and exchanges resolves itself simply into this ; 
shall fifty men receive" ten dollars " each, for a 
week's labor, or shall they receive only" five " each, 
and give the remaining" two hundred and fifty " to 
the capitalist? The producers at large can surely 
have but one opinion on this question, and they will 
not forever tolerate the glaring injustice which gives 
to one man, for one man's labor, the same sum as is 
given to fifty men for their whole united labor. In 
defence of the present social system, the capitalists 
and employers, when they hear of dissatisfaction, teii 
us that the working classes of the" United States 
" have little or nothing to complain of; that they live 
under free institutions ; that they can either work or 
let it alone, and that they are better fed, and clothed, 
and educated than even kings were in times of old. 
To render yet more striking the contrast between the 
present and the past condition of the producers, old 
records are brought forth, to show that the working 
men of former times were bought and sold like so 
many horses, along with the estate to which they 
were attached; that their houses were but assem- 
blages of sticks and stones, with windows destitute 
of glass; that they slept upon rushes, strewed upon a 
damp clay floor, and had a log of wood for a pillow ; 
that they lived upon the coarsest food, and scarcely 
tasted flesh a dozen times a year; that they had 
neither books, newspapers, nor knowledge, and had 
to work or fight as their masters and owners thought 
fit. If all this be true, and the working class be 
much better off than their predecessors were, it is no 
reason why they should not be still better off, and 
equally as well off, as those who tell them to hold 
their tongues, and be contented with the position 
which they now occupy. 



72 E QUALITY. 

" All happiness is comparative, and it is not in 
human nature to remain satisfied with any station, so 
long as it is cognizant of a better ; nor will men sub- 
mit to be measured by a low standard, so long as 
there is a higher in existence. Why should enormous 
masses of wealth be in possession of the idle and the 
profligate, when the industrious and the honest are 
without a penny ? Why should well fed, and well 
clothed magnificence, roll slothfully along in its 
splendid vehicle, in pursuit of new pleasures to tempt 
its palled appetite, and the toil-worn artizan be com- 
pelled to plod to his daily work with half clothed back, 
and hungry belly? There is no reason given, for 
there is not one to be found. The immaculate Spirit 
of Justice, which exists throughout creation, tells 
us in accents of eternal truth, that He never insti- 
tuted these most unjust distinctions among men !" 

I am fully convinced, that thousands upon thou- 
sands of our hard working citizens will deny the 
logic laid down in the foregoing chapters. Why do 
they deny it ? because, in the first place, many expect 
that they themselves shall be able to acquire their 
thousands of dollars ; having an eye to robbing in 
prospective, they cannot afford to be honest, or to 
acknowledge that the present system is other than the 
ne plus ultra of perfection ! This class of men 
belong to those interested in keeping things as they 
are. They may emphatically be styled, the know- 
ingly, and willingly dishonest ! This class of society's 
leeches, or bloodsuckers, will resort to any and every 
atrocity, sooner than they should be baulked in their 
wholesale plunder of the poletarians ! In the second 
place, others object to it on the grounds of a better 
system being impracticable ; surely, surely, after the 
experience of forty centuries, when every form of 



EQUALITY. 73 

government has been tried, and the laborer is still 
crushed by the capitalist, no humane men will make 
such paltry objections. There is one thing certain, 
that whatever change will take place, it must be for 
the better, it cannot be for the worse. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

POPULATION AND RESOURCES OF THE UNITED 
STATES. 

From a careful perusal of the foregoing chapters, 
it has been demonstrated, that labor is the parent of 
wealth, or capital. It has been also proved, that this 
wealth passes away from the bona fide owners, into 
the possession of the nonproducers. Secretary 
Walker, as I have shown in the seventh chapter, 
asserts, that three thousands of millions of dollars 
worth is annually produced in the United States. 
There are very few persons, if any, disposed to deny 
the correctness of Mr. Walker's able statistics. I am 
led, therefore, to take them as data for the method of 
illustration which I intend pursuing in this chapter. 

Doctor S. Denton, in a letter published in the 
Michigan Expositor, dated Ann Arbor, December 
1843, and addressed to Messrs. John Howland, John 
Cavender, Lewis Kemp, and others, lays it down as 
a correct proposition, that after there is as much 
allowed to each man, woman, and child, for support, 
as will keep a slave, of the aggregate wealth remain- 
ing, be it what it may, that nine-elevenths of it goes 
to the capitalists, and two-elevenths of it to the 
laborer ! I imagine that I am right in asserting that 

7* 



74 EQUALITY. 

a half a dollar per week is a maximum for a slave's 
maintenance, therefore, taking this sum as a safe 
guide, and taking the population to be, in round num- 
bers, twenty millions of souls, the following will be 
the results : 

Population of the United States, . - 20,000,000 

Number of individuals employed in 

useful occupations, 5,000,000 

Amount of dollars worth of wealth 

annually produced, 3,000,000,000 

Amount of dollars, at slaves' main- 
tenance, for twenty millions of 

souls, a half dollar per week each, - 520,000,000 
Remainder after the deduction for 

maintenance, 2,480,000,000 

The nine-elevenths of which is about 

something more than ... - 2,000,000,000 

(or capitalists moiety.) 
The producer's share, ..... 480,000,000 

Here are figures — here are facts ; and one fact is 
worth a ton of argument. Figures of this kind do 
not lie, and there is no kind of argument that the 
lawful, and of course, honorable, respected, and re- 
spectable swindlers, dread so much as these startling 
deductions ; they are well aware that the days of the 
system of fraud are passed away, the moment the pro- 
ducers, as a body, understand the system itself. Dr. 
Denton very wisely remarks, "that the laborers of this 
country already yield up to the nonproducing classes 
nine-elevenths of all the wealth which their toil 
creates, and the tendency is still onward ; the nonpro- 
ducing classes are constantly increasing in numbers, 
and growing more exorbitant in their demands, till 
soon another eleventh will be taken, and ere long 
another, when a bare subsistence will be all that is 



EQUALITY. 15 

left to the laboring man ! England has arrived at 
this stage sevpral years ago, to which we are now 
looking forward, and one would suppose when a 
nation had arrived at this crisis, it could go no further; 
but not so with England, for the ponderous machinery 
still moved on until labor would barely procure two 
meals of victuals per day, and raiment and lodging 
in proportion ; and at this very moment, a struggle is 
going on, if the period has not already arrived, when 
the demands of the nonproducing classes sponge up 
all but one meal per day, for the laborer, and a few 
rags for raiment ; and the same causes are in opera-, 
tion here, working out the same appalling results. 
Increase but slightly the expenses of our complicated 
forms of government, and our cumbersome system 
of jurisprudence afford more facilities for the increase 
of bankers and brokers, and let a few more enter into 
mercantile pursuits, and these nonproducers will be 
so numerous as to consume all the products of indus- 
try, leaving but a beggarly subsistence for the labor- 
ing classes. And who cannot perceive a steady 
growth in the numbers and demands of nonproducers 
in this country 1 They are gradually becoming more 
numerous and more corpulent, and thus steadily 
trenching upon the earnings of labor. The labor of 
the country produces but a given amount, and the 
question is, who shall have it ?" It is as clear as the 
sun at noonday, that so long as the present monstrous 
system continues, that the capitalists, that is, the 
accursed land and moneyed lords, will have it. And 
it is equally clear, that the present system will con- 
tinue until the poletarians shall have knowledge 
enough to change it. It is equally true, that the vam- 
pires will keep the producers in ignorance as long as 
possible upon the subject. But the true reformer 



76 EQUALITY. 

fears them not ; he pursues the cause of humanity 
under every trial. 

I here give a description of the various grades of 
Reformers, which I wrote for, and which was pub- 
lished in the Young American. 

" I know not what experience you may have had 
as regarding Reformers, but I will endeavor to sketch 
the different classes, if possible, to stimulate all to 
make greater efforts in this grand and noble under- 
taking. I find upon having closely examined this 
matter, that I may hazard the following remarks : — 
That there are five different kinds of Reformers 
which may be thus denominated. First and fore- 
most, the sincerely honest, who know all the difficul- 
ties of this struggle, who have made up their minds 
to agitate, agitate, agitate ; who are not afraid to avow 
their principles on any occasion, no matter what may 
be the consequences, who in adversity and prosperity, 
through good and through evil report, before the 
hatred of hostile foes, the sneers and scorn of ac- 
quaintances, and the lukewarmness and desertion of 
pretended friends, will still continue to maintain the 
immortal doctrines of man's equality ; who will not 
quail or slink away when danger arrives, as arrive it 
will ; who look upon mankind, no matter where born 
or of what hue, or to which particular creed attached, 
as the common children of the same impartial and 
benevolent Creator, and therefore, that one cannot 
have greater rights than another. Those who believe 
in this proposition and act upon it, are REFORMERS, 
and none else. Class two are the ambitiously dis- 
honest, who will work in the movement so long as 
you allow them to pursue their own way unmolested ; 
their opinion must be law ; every man is a fool but 
themselves ; they are eternally looking to self, self, 



EQUALITY. 77 

self; cross their path, and they turn upon you like a 
copperhead, and denounce the true Reformers, in 
order to build a reputation for themselves at other 
people's expense. Class three, are the silly ones 
whose tongues, like bellows' clappers, are always at 
work, oflener doing harm to the cause than good, 
meaning well all the time, yet continually creating 
mischief. Class four are the take-it-easy ones, the 
devil-may-care fellows, who will talk reform in a 
snug elbow chair, on a sofa, or in a comfortable 
parlor, mere pretenders to reform ; but ask them to 
serve on a committee, can't do it — to stick bills up for 
a meeting, can't do it — to assist in paying the rent for 
a Hall, can't do it — to speak at meetings, can't do it — 
to give us their vote at election times, can't do it — 
and for all this, they lay claim to the title of Re- 
formers. From such, good Lord, deliver us ! Class 
five, and last, are the traitors, who will appear among 
us from time to time, to make merchandize of us. 
These rascals will invariably be found to wear every 
mask to destroy our movement ; money with them 
is no object, because they will be able to get enough 
from the people's plunderers to carry on their cannibal 
designs." 

It is the common practice of the self-styled wise 
men of all generations, to declaim against any 
changes which are above their own shallow compre- 
hension, or which extend beyond the narrow and 
contracted circle of themselves and their class ! Such 
persons appear to have no idea that the world can go 
on in after times any way different to what it went at 
the precise time they existed ! The past is a blank 
to them, and therefore, the future is a sealed book ! 
To such men every thing that happens to be farther 
from their eyes than the ends of their own noses, is 



78 EQUALITY. 

i visionary,' every thing which they will not set them- 
selves to perform, is unaccomplishable by others ! 
There are many of those mental blinkards at the pre- 
sent day, and any man who dares but to hope that 
the sons of labor shall not always be oppressed and 
enslaved, is the most visionary of all visionaries ; 
any man who dares thus to hope, that men will not 
always be compelled, by circumstances, to hate and 
injure each other; that wars shall cease, and man- 
kind dwell in harmony together ; that a brighter and 
a better day is coming, is the most visionary of all 
visionaries ! The terms love, and charity, and mo- 
rality, imply, if interpreted by the acts of these wide- 
mouthed and narrow-ribbed screamers against inno- 
vation, not things to be felt, and practised, and en- 
joyed, but certain effects and incomprehensible 
essences, to be preached about in pulpit and platform 
harangues, for the edification of the poor and the 
oppressed. Generated by the present system, and 
fattening on its corruptions, we never find these 
scorners of good men, and good works, to be in 
poverty ; we never find them honorably and labori- 
ously engaged in the production of wealth ; but, like 
the scum upon the boiling pot, they dance upon the 
surface of society ; they are ever well to do in the 
world, always upon the watch for « profit ;' the voca- 
tion of such men, is to buy cheap, and sell dear ; to 
accumulate wealth by unjust and unequal exchanges ; 
to batten upon the fruit of the working man's toil ! 
These drivellers loudly inculcate the practice of 
morality and virtue; but although they see vice and 
misery overspreading the whole earth, and every 
moral injunction unheeded, and unfulfilled, these self- 
justified Pharisees, will themselves, do nothing to- 
wards accomplishing the end which they so often pro- 



I 



EQUALITY. 79 



fess to have in view ! On the contrary, they are per- 
petually spouting their frothy and unmeaning gabble 
against all innovaters, and all changes ! The world 
must wait their bidding, to move forward, or they 
1 hiss and scream like frightened geese !' " 

It has been asserted in the Encyclopaedia Ameri- 
cana, " that if ail the wealth in the United States 
were destroyed at one fell swoop, the whole of it 
could be replaced in the short space of eight years." 
Admitting, therefore, the truth of this statement, it 
demonstrates that there is now property in the coun- 
try to the enormous amount of twenty-four thousand 
millions of dollars, which if divided equally among 
the whole population, would give to each individual 
the sum of twelve hundred dollars ! However, a 
division of this nature would be neither practicable 
nor desirable; the country would be deluged with 
blood were such a thing attempted ; besides, if such 
a division did actually take place, so long as the pre- 
sent system of unequal exchanges existed, in less 
than twelve months things would be in exactly the 
same position in which they were prior to the division. 
What, therefore, is wanted by the producers, is to 
destroy the present system, and establish a just sys- 
tem of equality in its stead. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

POPULATION AND RESOURCES OF THE UNITED 

states . — ( Continued. ) ■ 

Under the present nefarious system, the following 
classes have to be maintained by the producers, in 
idleness, in luxury, or in debauchery. 



80 



EQUALITY. 



No. 1. Lawyers. 
2. Bankers. 
3.' Landlords. 

4. Merchants. 

5. Manufacturers 

6. Brokers. 

7. Legislators. 

8. Soldiers. 



No. 9. Judges, and other 
small fry, in con- 
nection with law. 

10. Doctors. 

11. Shopkeepers. 

12. Those engaged in 
the manufacture 
of useless, or in- 
jurious articles. 

All these classes, with their servants and de- 
pendents, must, in the very nature of things, live 
upon labor. It is unnecessary here to enter into any 
argument to prove, that under a just system, there 
would be no necessity for nearly the whole of these 
classes, legislators and surgeons alone, excepted ; but 
the expense of these would be no more than that of 
remunerative reproductive labor ; under a proper sys- 
tem of education, all would acquire a knowledge of 
physiology and dietetics, so far as to enable them to 
dispense with the medical profession, almost entirely. 
It is well known that most of the diseases of the in- 
dustrious portion of the people are contracted by in- 
cessant toil, by unwholesome food, and by unhealthy 
habitations ; and those of the rich and idle by lazy, 
luxurious habits. Under a proper system of society, 
such could not possibly be the case. True it is, there 
would be no palaces, but then there could be no hovels; 
all must labor, but then the exercise would be healthy. 
Let the working man only for a moment, contrast his 
condition with the condition of the capitalist. The 
working man lives in some dirty, narrow court, lane, 
or alley, ofte^n in a cellar, or garret, ill ventilated, 
where no person can find his home, (pardon the ex- 
pression,) his den, except a politician ; the capitalist 
lives in a beautiful, airy building, the rooms of which 



EQUALITY. 81 

are filled with furniture of the most costly workman- 
ship, the floors carpeted in the most splendid man- 
ner. The working man must rise at the earliest 
dawn, summer and winter, in cold, in wet, in hail, 
or in sunshine, and go and make wealth for others, 
for the merest pittance ; the capitalist never soils his 
hands, he rides in his coach, with a man dressed like 
a harlequin before, and another behind ; the working 
man's wife and children have hardly apparel enough 
to keep themselves decent ; the capitalist's wife and 
children are bedizzened in silks, in satins, and other 
costly fabrics. The working man cannot afford to 
give his children even the rudiments of an education ; 
the capitalist has a piano for his daughters, and his 
sons are sent to college. The life of the former is a 
continual struggle for a mere subsistence ; that of the 
latter is only annoyed by a cloyed appetite, or how to 
squeeze more profit out of the heart's blood of his 
wages slaves ! 

It has now been demonstrated, that labor is 
the pillar of the whole social superstructure ; surely, 
then, it is high time to elevate it to its proper and just 
standard. " Having thus probed the evil to its core, 
who can be surprised at the discontent of the toiling 
millions? who will start at their fierce and deep- 
breathed imprecations on a system which yearly plun- 
ders .them of wealth of the value of" two thousand 
millions of dollars, " a system which compels them 
to produce this vast amount for the enjoyment of 
those who treat them with derision and contempt? 
Shall the working man everlastingly toil, and sweat, 
and be forever thus plundered, and degraded, and 
trampled upon ? Is it to pamper the unholy pride of 
those who thus abuse him, that the infancy of his 
little ones is seared and blighted amid the foul and 

8 



82 EQUALITY. 

steamy air of cotton mills, and factories — ihat his 
own manhood is bowed down with the premature age 
produced by excessive toil 1 Shall his complaints be 
always hushed with the roar of artillery — his indig- 
nant heart stilled with the thrust of the bayonet — his 
upbraidings stifled in dungeons ? If he would have 
things to continue thus, let him still go on as he has 
hitherto done, drivelling and dreaming of relief from" 
party politicians, " from classes and castes, who de- 
riving their wealth and supremacy from his toil and 
abasement, know him only as a bondman, or an in- 
ferior ! If the working man would change this state 
of things, he must no longer look to mere effects ; he 
must look to causes ; he must at once destroy the 
source from whence his sufferings arise ! Equal rights, 
and equal laws, cannot, from the nature of things, 
exist in connection with unequal duties, unequal 
wealth, and unequal exchanges ! ■ He who hath a 
wife and child, hath given hostages to fortune,' and 
ought not fortune to give him hostages 1 The toils 
of the past and the present, should always secure to 
the working man and his family, the enjoyment of the 
future. But the present system offers the worn out 
workman no enjoyment, and no alleviation of un- 
merited distress and poverty, except in connection 
with degradation and hardship ! And, again, what 
kind of a welcome, and a shelter, does society at 
large now offer to the wife and the children of the 
expiring working man — to those for whom he has 
worn out himself in unremitting toil ? None — they 
wander over the earth as poor and penny less beggars, 
or like criminals, they are confined to pauper prisons ! 
The mother becomes separated from her children, and 
the children from each other; the chords which bound 
their young hearts, are snapped asunder forever, and 



EQUALITY. Si 



they wander over the earth, homeless and friendless, 
despised and enslaved, because they are ignorant; and 
disregarded, and ill treated, because they are poor. 
Is it to be wondered at, that those unfavorable cir- 
cumstances should do their work — that misery and 
prostitution is the portion of the one sex, and the peni- 
tentiary and the gallows the fate of the other 7 Look 
at the present social system, on whatever side, and in 
whatever* light we may, we behold but one compact 
mass of deformity and depravity ! If tyranny would 
revel in the blood and wealth of the people, then is 
this the proper system for tyranny ; if ignorance 
would enslave and stultify the mind, and manufacture 
soulless tools for despotism, then is this the proper 
system for ignorance ; if the commission of crime, 
and the practice of vice, and the waste of labor, be 
the chief ends for which men unite in society, then is 
this the proper social system ! It is for all men and 
all nations to declare, whether tyranny and" master- 
craft, " robbery and ignorance, wholesale murder, 
and intellectual depravation, shall any longer triumph 
over truth and justice !" 

The founders of the Republic paved the road for 
us to travel, and we are recreants to the holy cause 
of humanity if we halt on the journey ! 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

POPULATION AND RESOURCES OF THE UNITED 

states. — ( Continued,) 

The two classes which constitute the citizens of 
the Republic, are the producers on the one side, and 






84 EQUALITY. 

the capitalists on the other; all other classes, and 
grades of classes, resolve themselves into these two. 
As I have already, in general terms, proved that the 
laborer is cheated out of nine dollars out of eleven, 
which he earns, it would be a work of supererogation 
to travel over the same ground a second time ; but as 
there is no system of reasoning which has the ten- 
dency of convincing the sceptical, as comparing one 
thing with another, I continue to pursue this course 
in the present chapter, and exhibit at a glance, how 
different trades are remunerated. 

Wages per day of a hand loom weaver, 70 cents. 
" " a shoemaker, - - 90 " 

a tailor, .... 90 " 
an agricult'l. laborer, 75 " 
a sheriff of Philad'a., 80 dollars, 
the President of U. S., 68 « 
a Senator of the U.S., 8 dollars and 
mileage. 
" " a Major General, - 11 dollars, 

with rations for fifteen men, and 
horses. 
" " a Commodore, - - 11 dollars. 

" " a private soldier, - 50 cents. 

" " a sailor before the mast, 50 " 

Ought the working men to remain satisfied with the 
iniquitous system which thus dooms and damns them 
from the cradle to the coffin, to endless toil, and never- 
ceasing drudgery? Is not flour as necessary as a Pre- 
sident's Message ; clothes as sheriffs' writs ; houses as 
Senators' harangues ; and the privates' bayonet as thd 
sword of the General? Why, then, this outrageous 
difference ? why permit these usages of a barbarous 
age to exist ? The Commissioner of Patents, gives 



it 


a 


H 


a 


it 


u 


a 


u 


(C 


it 



EQUALITY. 85 

the following imformation on the resources of the 
Union. m 

Bushels of wheat produced in 1847, • 111,530,000 

" of Indian corn, 540,000,000 

« of rye, 31,350,000 

" of oats, ....... 176,000,000 

« of buckwheat, 11,674,000 

" of barley, 5,735,000 

Pounds of tobacco, ...... 219,964,000 

" of cotton, 1,026,500,000 

Bushels of rice, - . 103,400,500 

" potatoes, 97,018,000 

Pounds of silk, . - - . 404,600 

These quantities, if fairly divided among the whole 
population, would give the following results, assuming 
the population to be twenty millions of inhabitants. 



Wheat, 5^ bush.each. 


Potatoes, 


4J bush.each. 


Indian corn,27 


u 


Tobacco, 


11 lbs. each. 


Rye, li 


it 


Cotton, 


51i « 


Oats, 8$ 


a 


Rice, 


5 


Buckwheat, £ 
Barley, \ 


(C 

H 


Silk, 


2 « 
5 



I presume that I need hardly inquire as to whether 
each head of a family received the just dividend. I 
am aware that this method of reasoning will be ab- 
horred and dreaded by those who live upon labor. I 
am also certain, that the prejudice of party is hard to 
be removed ; and sure I am, that the now almost ob- 
solete cry of infidel, of anarchist, or of leveller, will 
be raised against any man having the moral honesty, 
and physical courage, to rescue labor from their 
deadly clutches ! St. Paul, and none will doubt his 
orthodoxy, lays it down as a maxim, that " he that 

8* 



86 EQUALITY. 

does not work, neither shall he eat:" surely, then, I 
ought to receive the highest commendation for endea- 
voring to carry the Apostle's injunction into operation. 
" Oh, but," say the wiseacres, " labor, or rather the 
wages of labor, can never be regulated by law !" 
And pray, Messrs. Wiseacres, how is it that the 
wages of the constables, of the aldermen, of the mem- 
bers of the State Legislatures, and o[ Congress, of 
judges, are all regulated by law ? What is to pre- 
vent the agricultural laborer, the weaver, the spinner, 
the stonemason, and all other trades, from being simi- 
larly regulated? Nothing upon earth, but the cupi- 
dity and avarice of the capitalists, who, sooner than 
live to witness so salutary and just a system adopted, 
would murder one half of the human race ! 

The President of the United States receives twenty- 
five thousand dollars per annum ; a working man, 
say, averages two hundred and fifty dollars, in the 
same length of time. It would take a working man 
one hundred years, at this remuneration, to earn the 
President's salary for one year ! So long as the 
American citizen remains contented to witness this 
disparity in the wages of one as contrasted with an- 
other man, he must expect to behold his country be- 
come a political battle field for faction, where each 
mere political partisan belches forth, that widespread 
ruin will overwhelm the land, unless that his party 
are the successful gladiators ! The proper interpre- 
tation of which is, elect me to office, that I may 
feather my nest in the general scramble, and that 1 
may be enabled to live in luxury and idleness at the 
expense of the laborer. 

In the midst of this land, teeming with abundance, 
there is want and suffering, vice and crime, at our 



EQUALITY. 87 

very doors. Take New York and its statistics. 
There are of 

Unfortunate women, - - 13,000 

Thieves, illegal, 4,000 

Houses of ill fame, - 4,000 

Destitute persons, relieved by different in- 
stitutions, 75,000 

Can the advocates of the present system, look an 
honest man in the face, and say that it is not high 
time there should be a change ! " Proclaim it not in 
Gath, tell it not in Ascalon," that there are wretches 
so utterly lost to shame, as to continue to defend the 
present cannibal state of society, after having viewed 
it in all its bearings ! Be it the work of the reformer 
to change it effectually. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

LANDLORDISM. 

The monopoly of land has led to a monopoly of 
money; the monopoly of money to a monopoly of 
education ; the monopoly of education has led to a 
monopoly of all social and political power ! The de- 
parture from the first great natural law, has led to 
the violation of every other right. Look over this 
world of ours, and in every land, and among every 
people, and under every form of government, are the 
land pirates to be found seizing upon the soil, and 
parcelling it out, as best suits their own interests. 
From an infinitely remote antiquity, the struggle ever 



88 EQUALITY. 






has been between justice and injustice, between right 
and might. 

" Truth forever on the scaffold, 
Wrong forever on the throne." 

The iron heel of the despot is ever stamped upon 
the neck of those of whom he has made slaves. The 
earth, the water, the air, the sun's heat, the light, 
were never made by any man, consequently, no 
human being can claim that which he never produced, 
or made ; man can only claim that which he pro- 
duces, beyond this it is impossible to go ! Men have 
eyes, therefore, they require light ; and that man who 
would monopolize the light, would be pronounced a 
miscreant and a robber. Therefore, it is, that as the 
Creator has made light for all, it follows, as a matter 
of fact, that no one man, or one class of men, can 
arrogate to themselves the right of keeping the light 
to themselves, to the exclusion of the bulk of man- 
kind ! If this argument be true, it follows, that the 
other elements of nature should be the common pro- 
perty of the human race ; for, as the Creator has 
made all things for man in general, therefore, man's 
rights to them are universal, and no system, or plan, 
or scheme, or device, either legal, or illegal, can 
alienate those rights from him — no earthly power, or 
combination of powers, or legislatures, can fritter 
away an atom of that right ! It is an erroneous idea, 
that rights can be taken away ; men may be debarred 
from exercising their rights, but the rights exist, (in- 
dependent of tyrannies,) sacred and eternal ! The 
air is necessary for human life, it is the common pro- 
perty of the race : now what would be said of a body 
of men who entered into a solemn league and cove- 
nant, to bottle up the air, and sell it at extremely dear 
prices? Would they not be pronounced murderers, 



EQUALITY. 89 

robbers, brigands, bandits, villains, rascals, scoun- 
drels, miscreants; nay, more, would it not be said, 
that they were demons, in the form of humanity ! 

Wherever the soil of a nation has been monopolized 
by the iew^ there has the cup of bitterness been 
drained to the dregs, and all by the miserable pro- 
ducers. The present condition of the world is proof 
positive of the veracity of this statement. Behold the 
condition of the ryot on the banks of the Ganges ; 
the boor' by the frozen Borodino ; the serf through 
the length and breadth of Poland ; the lazzaroni in 
sunny Italy ; the peasant in ferule Ireland ; are 
strong evidences of the truth of these statements ! 
Wherever and whenever the masses have asked that 
justice should be conceded to them, they have been 
met by brute force, and slaughtered like so many 
sheep ! W r herever and whenever any man has dared 
to assert that the rights of all men are equal, that 
man has been murdered. But "there always have 
been in all countries, and under all forms of govern- 
ment, individuals in mental advance of, and appa- 
rently in opposition to the main body of a people. 
They are the pioneers of the march of mind ; the 
first to give battle to prejudice, and the first to fall 
before it ; and although they make the road to know- 
ledge, to freedom, and to happiness, practicable and 
easy, they do so only by paving the way with their 
own bones. The vocation of these invaders of the 
dark empire of ignorance and tyranny, renders them 
the especial dread of despots, and all the upholders 
of usurped power, and unjustly acquired wealth ; 
and they are, therefore, always persecuted with a 
horrible malignancy, which no other being but man 
can feel or exercise ! When we take into considera- 
tion the various circumstances which have retarded 



90 EQUALITY. 

human improvement, we cannot be surprised that the 
disenthralment of man from man, has not yet been 
achieved. Under despotism, and the majority of gov- 
ernments are little else than despotisms, the know- 
ledge of truth and liberty progresses slowly ; for the 
gibbet and the dungeon are of too easy access to be 
neglected by the governors, especially where custom 
has made the immolation of the victim a matter but 
of little moment. Should the ruling few think fit to 
give a reason for their bloody acts, they fabricate 
some black and odious lie, calculated to mislead the 
multitude, and work upon their passions, and their 
prejudices, and the unhappy and enslaved people are 
made to gloat upon the sufferings, and decry the prin- 
ciples of him who would have made them enlightened 
and happy ; they are taught to regard him as one of 
the deadliest enemies of the human race, and believ- 
ing him to be such, they exult at his discomfiture, and 
glory in his downfall ! The governors cry, " crucify 
him," and the deluded-governed, loudly echo, " cru- 
cify him I" Should the fearless champion of truth 
escape for a time with life, it makes but little differ- 
ence in favor of his cause. Every thing is against 
him. The great body of those who are oppressed, 
and who stand most in need of deliverance, are, per- 
haps, unable to read, and the oral communication of 
political knowledge, even in countries professing to 
enjoy the liberty of thought, and speech, is almost as 
slow and unsafe a method as that adopted by means 
of books. Wherever the body is enslaved, the mind 
is more tyrannized over, for the anathema of the 
bigot is ever at the call of the despot, and the here- 
after of the first, is always more dreaded by an igno- 
rant people than the present tyranny of the last! 
The minds of the oppressor and the oppressed, are 



EQUALITY. 91 

warped and confined from infancy to manhood ; and 
thus, benighted and enslaved, does generation follow 
generation, and those simple truths and principles 
which, under certain circumstances, might have be- 
come universally known and acted upon, during the 
passing of one generation, are under other circum- 
stances, almost unknown and unregarded, at the end 
of centuries. It is time that man went to first prin- 
ciples ; it is time that he broke through those conven- 
tional cobwebs, which, spun by his own ignorance, 
and fastened upon him by his own hands, have for 
ages bound his body and his soul as firmly as if they 
had been fetters of adamant, and had been imposed 
upon him by the immutable decrees of the Creator ! 
Past and present events afford ample demonstration, 
that there is something inherently wrong in our social 
arrangements, something which tends inevitably to 
generate misery and crime, and to exalt worthless- 
ness at the expense of merit ! We are acquainted 
with justice only by name. Our whole social fabric 
is only one vast Babel of interests, in which true 
charity, and morality, and brotherly love, have no 
existence ! The hand of every man is, more or less, 
raised against every other man ; the interest of every 
class is opposed to the interest of every other class ; 
and all other interests are in opposition and hostility 
to the working men's interest ! This unnatural 
state of things was originally, indeed, and is now 
maintained by man's ignorance of, or inattention to 
first principles ! The landlord and the money lords 
of the earth, have, and will try to perpetuate that 
ignorance ; in proof of which I here insert an original 
article of mine from the columns of the Young 
American : 

"When the useful classes of France rose like a 



92 EQCALITr. 

giant and overthrew « the blood-cemented thrones of 
landlordism and usury,' the middle classes, the Bur- 
geosie, the profit-mongers at first made common cause 
with the people to destroy the throne, the church, and 
the aristocracy ; but the moment the people insisted 
upon the benefits of the Revolution being extended to 
themselves, that very moment the Burgeosie, or shop- 
ocracy, endeavored to arrest the Revolution ; nor did 
they stop until they plunged France into anarchy, and 
finally into despotism ; and they also murdered all 
the good men, all the real patriots of the Republic — 
and not only did they assassinate their bodies, but 
they have also assassinated their characters. How is 
it, I ask, that Mirabeau and Bailey, and the whole of 
that school are, and have been praised for their love 
of liberty ? Simply because they were for a mere 
change of political and social power from the feudal 
aristocracy to themselves; and further, because Thiers 
and Mignet, and Allison and Scott, and Montholon 
and Las Cases, and the whole crew of venal and 
prostitute authors, who have written of the Revolu- 
tion, belong to the same class ; and therefore, it is 
that they misrepresent the occurrences of that ever- 
to-be-remembered and never-to-be-forgotten era. — 
When the Revolution had fairly set in, the French 
republicans were divided at once into two classes, 
namely, the producing classes on the one hand, and 
the Burgeosie on the other. The chiefs or leaders of 
the former were Robespierre, Marat, and St. Just, with 
other subordinate co-operators, and were called in the 
National Convention, the Mountain Party. The chiefs 
of the latter, were Danton, Bailey, &c, and were 
called the Gironde. The aim of Robespierre, Marat, 
and St. Just, was to secure to the producers all that 
they produced. Could any thing be more fair, more 



EQUALITY. 93 

iust, or more reasonable than this ? Most certainly 
not. For endeavoring to accomplish so holy and so 
desirable an object, they were thwarted, denounced, 
circumvented, and finally murdered by the cannibal 
vampires who would now, as they did then, if they 
dare, kill any man, or set of men, who may have the 
honesty and fearlessness to undermine » the blood- 
cemented thrones of landlordism and usury. 5 

" Show me one single movement for the benefit of 
the proletarians, and then I will show you the diabo- 
lical plottings of the landlords and usurers. The 
reason why such men are patriots, is, that in the past 
political changes .of the world, the power of those 
two classes has always remained intact; has been 
always considered too sacred in every past political 
change. Whether it has been monarchy, oligarchy, 
or democracy, the landlords and usurers have been 
permitted to build their murderous temple on the 
wrongs and misfortunes of the producers ; therefore, 
they care not what the form of government may be, 
so long as their unhallowed power is not interfered 
with. But the moment that a great social change is 
attempted, then it is that all the strength of this 
hydra-headed monster is put forth to destroy the 
righteous undertaking. Such we have seen to be the 
fate ok the leaders of the French equalitarians ; such 
has been attempted against the leaders of the English 
Chartists ; the British Burgeosie have murdered the 
British Chartists, have transported their leaders, have 
imprisoned the good men of that movement, and 
would, sooner than witness a social change, burn one 
half of the property of the British Isles, and murder 
half of their inhabitants. Suppose that by the next 
arrival we should receive intelligence that Feargus 
O'Connor, Bronterre O'Brien, Doctor M'Douall, or 



94 EQUALITY. 

James Leach, were murdered by the middle classes, 
we would hardly get even a transient notice of the 
event in the press ; or, if mentioned at all, we would 
be veraciously informed that they were a set of level- 
lers, agrarians, anarchists, and destructives, most 
assuredly ; and yet these men are the best friends of 
the working people in England." 



CHAPTER XX. 
landlordism. — ( Continued.) 

To remedy the present calamitous state of society, 
the following propositions ought to be the basis of a 
future social system. 

First. That the soil of a country should be the 
common property of the people. 

Second. That no individual should be allowed to 
hold more than is necessary to maintain himself and 
family in comfort. 

Third. That the homestead should be exempt from 
forced sale for debt or mortgage. 

I cannot do better than to fortify my position by 
the quotation of the opinions of great statesmen, of 
great philosophers, of great philanthropists, of great 
political writers, and of good men. For, although 
the opinions of such men cannot make that which is 
true in fact, to be false in theory, or vice versa, yet 
their opinions carry a certain weight with the mass 
of mankind. The republican will admire the doc- 
trines of a Jefferson and a Jackson, and the practical 
Christian will yield a ready assent to the law of the 
New Testament. 



EQUALITY. 95 

We commanded you, that if any would not work, 
neither should he eat.-fjB Thess. iii. 10. 

The land, or earth, in any country, or neighbor- 
hood, with every thing in, or on the same, or pertain- 
ing thereto, belongs at all times to the living inhabit- 
ants of the said country, or neighborhood, in an equal 
manner. For there is no living but on land, and its 
productions; consequently, what we cannot live with- 
out, we have the same property in as in our lives. — 
Thomas Spence. 

The earth is the habitation, the natural inheritance 
of all mankind, of ages present and to come : a habi- 
tation belonging to no man in particular, but to every 
man ; and one in which all have an equal right to 
dwell. — John Gray. 

A people among whom equality reigned, would 
possess every thing they wanted where they pos- 
sessed the means of subsistence. Why should they 
pursue additional wealth or territory ? No man can 
cultivate more than a certain portion of land. — 
Godwin. 

No one is able to produce a charter from heaven, 
or has any better title to a particular possession than 
his neighbor. — Paley. 

There could be no such thing as landed property 
originally. Man did not make the earth ; and, though 
he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to 
locate as his property in perpetuity, any part of it ; 
neither did the Creator of the earth open a land office, 
from whence the first title deeds should issue.— 
Thomas Paine. 

My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold 



96 EQUALITY. 

The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon, 
and cultivate, as far as is necessary for their subsist- 
ence ; and so long as they occupy and cultivate it, 
they have the right to the soil — but if they voluntarily 
leave it, then any other people have a right to settle 
upon it. Nothing can be sold, but such things as can 
be carried away. — Black Hawk, 

The remedy I propose for the increasing pauperism 
of the United States, and of New York in particular, 
is the location of the poor on the lands of the far 
West, which would not only afford permanent relief 
to our unhappy brethren, but would restore that self- 
respect and honorable principle, inseparable from 
citizenship. — Rev, Wm, H, Channing's Lecture, 
Feb, 28, 1844. 

There is no foundation in nature, or in natural law, 
why a set of words upon parchment should convey 
the dominion of land. — Blaclcstone. 

The mass of mankind has not been born with sad* 
dies on their backs, nor a favored few booted and 
spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace 
of God. — Jefferson's Last Letter. 

Properly speaking, the land belongs to these two : 
To the Almighty God, and to all his children of men 
that have ever worked well on it, or that shall ever 
work well on it. No generation of men can or could, 
with never such solemnity and effort, sell land on any 
other principle : it is not the property of any genera- 
tion, we say, but that of all the past generations that 
have worked on it, and of all the future ones that 
shall work on it. — Thomas Carlisle, 

Have the landlords dominion in their lands ? or do 



EQUALITY. 97 

they lawfully possess only the title of them 1 Can 
they do what they like with their lands ? — Cobbett. 

Man's right to the earth, to possess it, cultivate it, 
and enjoy its fruits, is Divine, and rests on the will 
of the Creator. The evidences of this are in the 
Bible, in man's constitution, in the simple fact that 
man is placed here under circumstances which render 
his possession of the earth indispensable to his very 
subsistence. God gave the earth to the children of 
men. — Brownson. 

I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be 
self-evident, that the earth belongs in usufruct to the 
living. — Thomas Jefferson. 

I am now reduced to a thousand acres, and I exult 
in the diminution, since the happiness of others is 
promoted by participation. — Lafayette. 

To afford every American citizen of enterprise, the 
opportunity of securing an independent freehold, it 
seems to me best to abandon the idea of raising a 
future revenue out of the public lands. — Jackson's 
Message, 1832. 

It is thus that the earth expands her fruitful bosom, 
and lavishes treasures among those happy people who 
cultivate it for themselves. She seems to smile and 
be enlivened at the sweet aspect of liberty ; she loves 
to nourish mankind ! On the contrary, the mournful 
ruins, the heath and brambles which cover that dis- 
tant country, proclaim, from afar, that it is under the 
dominion of an absent proprietor, and that it yields 
with reluctance, a scanty produce to slaves who reap 
no advantage from it. — Rousseau. 

In short, (Mr. Webster said,) he would put it to 

9* 



98 EQUALITY. 

any man who possessed the blessing of children, 
whether he would not hope rather that they would be 
freeholders, though they should till their own soil 
with their own hands, with the reasonable prospect 
of respectability and independence, than they should 
go through life as journeymen manufacturers, taking 
their chance of the ignorance, and the vice, the pro- 
fligacy, and the poverty of that condition, though it 
were in the best manufactory in the richest city in 
the world. — Extract from Daniel Webster's Free 
Trade Speech, delivered in Boston, October 1820. 

On the contrary, it is a wise policy to afford facili- 
ties to our citizens to become the owners, at low and 
moderate rates, of freeholds of their own, instead of 
being the tenants and dependents of others. If it be 
apprehended that these lands, if reduced in price, 
would be secured in large quantities by speculators 
and capitalists, the sales may be restricted, in limited 
quantities, to actual settlers or persons purchasing for 
purposes of cultivation. — President Polk's Message, 
December 8, 1846. 

Jefferson has wisely said, " that there are three 
ways by which a nation can become rich — viz. first, 
by conquest ; second, by commerce, and the third, 
by agriculture. The first is by highway robbery and 
murder ; the second is by chicane and fraud ; and the 
third is the only just and legitimate method. " In ad- 
dition to the authorities already quoted, the Bible 
proves, to a demonstration, that under the Mosaic Jaw, 
the soil of Judea belonged to the whole people ; in 
proof of which I quote part of the twenty-fifth chapter 
of Leviticus. 

The land shall not be sold forever: for the land 



EQUALITY. 99 

is mine ; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. 
And in all the land of your possession, ye shall grant 
a redemption for the land. 

If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away 
some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to 
redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother 
sold. And if the man have none to redeem it, and 
himself be able to redeem it ; then let him count the 
years of the sale thereof, and restore the overplus unto 
the man to whom he sold it ; that he may return unto 
his possession. But if he be not able to restore it to 
him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand 
of him that hath bought it until the year of jubilee ; 
and in the jubilee it shall go out, and he shall return 
unto his possession. 

And if a man sell a dwelling house in a walled 
city, then he may redeem it within a whole year after 
it is sold : within a full year may he redeem it. And 
if it be not redeemed within the space of a full year, 
then the house that is in the walled city shall be es- 
tablished forever to him that bought it, throughout his 
generations : it shall not go out in the jubilee. But 
the houses of the villages, which have no walls round 
about them, shall be counted as the fields of the 
country : they may be redeemed ; and they shall go 
out in the jubilee. — Lev. xxv. 23 — 31. 

Let the working men of America only ponder for 
a moment upon the terror and the consternation which 
would seize upon the oppressors of the people, if this 
chapter were to be enforced to-morrow ! It is more 
than fifty years since there has been a balance sheet, 
and it is high time that accounts should be squared — 
it is high time that each man should get his own ! 
The land and moneyed lords of the earth, will make 



100 EQUALITY. 

common cause against the people, and if the meek 
and lowly Jesus came into our mammon-worshipping 
city, to rebuke the high priests, the scribes, and the 
Pharisees of this generation, he would be put to death 
by them, without one qualm of conscience ! The 
necessity of the earth belonging to all instead of to 
the few, is now apparent to every honest man ; to the 
man of extortion and of murder, it is not apparent, 
because the man who has a thousand dollars a year 
for being a rogue, the devil himself, backed out by 
Doctor Faustus, could not make an honest one of 
him ! 

I find that I must recur again to the wages of 
labor ; the Commissioner of Patents gives us the fol- 
lowing estimate. 

Wages of Labor. — The report of the Commis- 
sioner of Patents contains an extended tabular state- 
ment of the prices paid to farm laborers, and to me- 
chanics, in the various counties of the different States 
of the Union. The facts thus presented, must be in- 
teresting to our readers generally, and we give the 
substance of them in a condensed form. 

Farm Laborers. — Maine, northern parts, $12 to 
$15 per month. 

New Hampshire and Vermont, $12 per month. 

Massachusetts, eastern, $12 to $14 per month. 

Massachusetts, western, $11 per month. 

New York, mostly $10 per month, often $12 per 
month, a very few $8 per month. 

New Jersey, $15 per month, and not boarded. 

Pennsylvania, mostly $10 to $12 per month. 

Maryland, $8 to $10 per month ; 37i to 50 cents 
per day. 

Virginia, southern, $5 per month ; northwestern, 
$10 per month. 



EQUALITY. 101 

North Carolina, northern and central, $7 to $8 per 
month ; western, 50 to 75 cents per day. 

South Carolina, western, $5 per month; north- 
western, $6 to $10 per month ; northeastern, 28 cents 
per day; central, $8 to $10 per month; white 
laborers, $15 per month. 

Georgia, northwestern, $15 per month, or 75 cents 
per day. 

Alabama, southern, 30 cents per day ; northern, 
25 cents a day ; central, 50 cents a day. 

Mississippi, colored, 50 cents a day; white, $12 to 
$15 per month, and found; newer parts, 50 cents 
per day. 

Tennessee, western, $8 to $12 per month ; eastern, 
$10 to $12 per month. 

Ohio, mostly $10 per month ; rather higher in the 
southern parts. 

Indiana, $9 to $10 per month. 

Illinois, central a*hd southern, $8 to $10 per month ; 
northern, $15 to $20 per month. 

Michigan, very variable; average about $11 per 
month. 

Iowa, about $12.50 per month. 

As a general average, wages are higher in more 
newly settled regions, especially where emigration is 
rapid and enterprise considerable ; in older country 
places, the wages are lower, except near large cities, 
where they are high. In the slaveholding States, 
wages are generally considerably lower than else- 
where, with the exception of the sugar region in 
Louisiana, and the more southern, newer, and cotton 
producing portions. To these general remarks, there 
are, of course, exceptions. 

Mechanics. — In the more northern and eastern 
States, the daily wages are from one dollar to one 



102 EQUALITY. 

dollar twenty-five cents, being higher in cities. In 
the more northern slave States, wages are not quite 
so high. In the newer slave States, the wages of 
mechanics are higher, varying from one to two dol- 
lars. In the Western States, the price is generally 
variable, being from 75 cents to two dollars per day ; 
scarcity in a supply tending to advance the price ; 
while the low price of provisions, and consequent 
higher rates of money, has a contrary tendency. 

In England the average wages of a laborer are 
forty cents per day ; but the standard varies greatly. 
The Nottingham stocking weavers, in an address to 
the public, stated that after toiling from fourteen to 
sixteen hours per day, they could earn only from one 
dollar to one dollar and twenty-five cents per week ; 
and were obliged to subsist on bread and water, or 
potatoes and salt. In Ireland, the average price * of 
common labor is from ten to twelve cents per day. 
In France, the common wages of *a hired laborer are 
thirty-seven dollars fifteen cents, for a man, and 
eighteen dollars and seventy-five, for a woman, an- 
nually ; the taxes upon which are equal to one-fifth 
of the nett product. In some parts of India, where 
the laborers want but a little rice and salt, the com- 
mon wages are as low as five cents a day. 

Pray, Mr. Commissioner, why did you not tell the 
people that there are hundreds of women in New 
York, making shirts at seven cents a piece, and 
making pants at five cents each 1 wljy did you not 
inform us, that on an average, the mechanics, who 
receive such high wages, are idle three months out of 
every twelve? But why pursue this subject further, 
when every man who has read this, comprehends this 
position in ail its bearings. 



EQUALITY. 103 

CHAPTER XXI. 
landlordism. — {Continued,) 

The opponents of the earth being the common pro- 
perty of all its inhabitants, raise the following objec- 
tions against it : 

First. That it is impracticable and Utopian : which 
being interpreted, means that every attempt at reform, 
or change, from bad to good, on the part of the op- 
pressed, shall be thwarted and crushed, by the profit- 
mongers. 

Second. That the advocates of reform are infidels, 
levellers, and anarchists : the meaning of which is, 
that sooner than the system at present in operation 
shall be changed, that we will, (that is, the profit- 
mongers,) ruin the cause of humanity, by assassinat- 
ing the characters of the real friends of human rights! 

Third. That another system of society will destroy 
enterprise : that is, the enterprise of legal thieves and 
scoundrels, will be forever prevented, " and peace on 
earth, and good will to men," be established, for their 
rascality ! 

Fourth. That the freedom of the soil to the whole 
race of man, is unjust : that is, land robbers and 
speculators can no more hold, or acquire land exclu- 
sively to themselves, but that all men shall be secured 
in their just rights, without fear or favor. 

Fifth. That to exempt the homestead is unjust : in- 
asmuch as it will protect the widow and the orphan 
from the rackrenter and extortioner, and destroy the 
grasping clutches of avarice ; and that, as all debts 
between man and man, being debts of honor, no man 
will then give or take credit upon any other plea or 



104 EQUALITY. 

plan, than an industrious and honest character. The 
sincerely good and wise will make no objections, or 
raise no obstacles to the trial of a system which pro- 
mises to be of such benign influence to man ! The 
landlords and usurers, on the contrary, will oppose it 
by every means at their disposal. Why do I say so 1 
because, in all ages of the world, in every clime, 
under every circumstance, and among every people, 
the advocates of human rights have been ruthlessly 
butchered by these infernal monsters ! The two 
brothers, Caius and Tiberius Gracchus, fell victims 
to the Moloch power of these classes, upwards of two 
thousand years ago. Julius Caesar, whose greatest 
crime was the ineffectual effort to arrest the avarice 
of the Roman landlords and usurers, and to have an 
agrarian law passed for the benefit of his poor fellow 
citizens, was murdered in the very Senate house, by 
that pink of perfection, Brutus, and his lawless gang 
of usurious conspirators ! When I say that Brutus 
was a usurer, I make no false assertion, for he lent 
money at fifty per cent, per annum, compound in- 
terest; and when his debtors were unable to pay, 
he ordered his attorney to sell their stock, and 
even to sell themselves into slavery, to satisfy his 
rapacity. " Yet Brutus was an honorable man, and 
they were all honorable men !" Brutus, in the moral 
acceptation of the term, was a conspirator, a usurer, 
an assassin, a murderer, and a patrician, or an aris- 
tocrat ! How is it, that the hireling and venal authors 
from that day to this, have praised Brutus and his 
copartners in villany and crime, to the seventh 
heaven, as the greatest patriots the world ever saw ? 
Simply because all these wretches wrote from merce- 
nary motives; because they were paid by the robbers 
of the people ! Assassination is extremely patriotic 






EQUALITY. 105 

so long as tyrants commit the act ; but let a whole 
people bring a perfidious king to the block, and the 
maledictions of heaven are sure to be invoked upon 
the people of that guilty nation ! How wicked, how 
criminal, how horrible, is assassination, when a tyrant 
is killed ! If an Irish peasant shoots a landlord, he 
deserves to be hanged — not a doubt of it ; but if a 
hundred thousand peasants are slaughtered, or millions 
starved to death, no doubt, also, but it is to preserve 
law and property ! How dreadful an occurrence is 
this affair of assassination, how shocking to the nerves 
of an aristocrat ; but how noble, how sublime, how 
patriotically grand, when the friend of freedom 
perishes ! These atrocious classes, murdered Rienzi, 
the last and the greatest of the great tribunes of the 
Eternal City ! Watt Tyler, and Jack Cade, perished 
by their hands ! Robespierre, St. Just, and Marat, 
fell victims to the same ruthless and destroying 
classes ; and not satisfied with immolating these great 
and good men on the altar of mammon and unrighte- 
ousness ; they have also belied them with the most 
savage -and relentless hatred ! Why have they done 
so ? because they know that the only way to maintain 
their unhallowed power, is to malign the advocates of 
reform, as the best way, and the surest to accomplish 
their own unhallowed ends ! 

It is not for me to feebly direct the working man's 
attention to the independence of an agricultural life. 
The free air of heaven, the clear stream, the neat 
farm house, the well stocked barn, the fresh milk, 
butter and eggs, the poultry, the sheep, the goats, the 
horses, the milk cows, the fat hogs, the fields yellow 
with corn, the garden full of good vegetables, the 
snug orchard, the free earth under the farmer's foot, 
the broad blue sky over his head, all prove, all are 

10 



f 



106 EQUALITY. 

evidences that his is the most independent life of the 
whole community ! He owns no master but his Crea- 
tor ; he obeys no will but the law ; no factory tyrant, 
or landed aristocrat, can take from him the fruits of 
his industry ! I grant that he has to labor. Comforts 
like these do not spring up by magic; but do not 
the haggard, pale faced, stunted denizens of our 
cities labor, and can they ever realize these comforts, 
this independence ? never — never ! I strictly caution 
any person from inferring that I am in favor of taking 
away one penny's worth of property, or land, from 
those who now possess such. I am opposed to all ex 
post facto laws. I go so far as to say,, that I would 
secure to the present possessors of wealth, safely, all 
their present unjustly acquired gains ; my laws, or 
regulations, would in prospective go to establish, from 
this time henceforward, the right of all men to the 
earth, to air, to water, to heat ; that no man should 
be able to acquire any wealth for the future, except 
by honest labor, by equal exchanges ! The just man 
will not oppose this — the unjust one will 



CHAPTER XXII. 

MONEY. 

In the foregoing chapters, I have pointed out those 
social evils which weigh heavy on the people ; I have 
stated that* a metallic currency is the safest, so long 
as the present speculating system will continue, be- 
cause it is more impossible to expand gold and silver 
than paper. But under a just system, the precious 
metals might be entirely dispensed with, in internal 



EQUALITY. 107 

regulations. I submit the following propositions in 
connection with a circulating medium, viz. 

That there ought to be money enough at all times 
in a country to pay the laborer for all the surplus 
produce, which he chooses to sell to society. 

This proposition cannot be evaded by the econo- 
mists ; because if the employer has not the means to 
pay, he becomes bankrupt. Therefore, no employer 
ought to hire men to work, unless he is positively cer- 
tain that he can pay the men whenever they demand 
their wages. Another proposition I also subjoin, viz. 

That there ought to be circulating medium enough 
to employ all those able and willing to labor. I will 
now prove that a metallic currency could not answer 
all the demands under a correct system of society : 
and here the question arises, what is money, and 
what are its uses ? Money is that commodity which 
the conventional usages of society have agreed to 
represent capital. Gold, silver, iron, copper, leather, 
paper, have at various times been made to perform 
that duty. Labor ought to be the basis of money, not 
money the basis of labor. Men will part with any and 
every kind of produce for money. How is it, that 
by the cunning legerdemain of legal speculators, that 
bits of gold, and silver, and small portions of paper, 
will purchase land, houses, clothing, &c.? simply from 
the conventional usages of society. Gold, or paper, 
cannot be eaten, or worn as clothing, or shelter^ and 
are not intrinsically of the value of iron. Suppose 
that to-morrow, all the money, whether made of the 
precious metals, or of paper, were destroyed, the 
nation would, in reality, be nothing the poorer ; but 
suppose, that all the food, clothing, and houses, were 
destroyed, and that each man had one hundred thou- 



108 EQUALITY. 

sand dollars, either in gold or paper, the nation would 
be all but ruined. 

There is wealth in the United States to the amount 
of twenty-four thousand millions of dollars ; it is all 
nonsense to suppose, that under existing institutions, 
this capital, or even a twentieth part of it is repre- 
sented by the present amount of money ! As I have 
before shown, there are five millions of producers in 
the Union, each earning twelve dollars per week ; 
suppose that each of these received a full equivalent 
in money for his labor, and suppose that he chooses 
to maintain his family upon six dollars, and save the 
other six ; this will draw thirty millions of dollars 
from circulation, each week, or in round numbers, 
fifteen hundred millions of dollars will be hoarded in 
one year ! Where, I ask, is the circulating medium 
in existence to meet such a demand and saving? 
There is not gold enough for even a tenth, or perhaps, 
a twentieth part! It cannot be denied but there is 
plenty of the raw material in our country ; enough of 
land, and to spare, to usefully and productively em- 
ploy every laborer ; but it being the interest of the 
capitalist to keep in his possession the control of the 
circulating medium, in order to have the laborer more 
completely at his mercy. It would be impossible for 
this to be the case, were labor the basis of money ; 
that is, did the circulating medium belong to the 
nation, and only represent labor instead of capital, as 
it does now ! Man is an accumulating animal, and it 
is evident, that if our social arrangements were such 
that each individual received the full value of his 
labor, the disposition to labor would become pretty 
general. When men produce food, or clothes, or 
houses, and sell them to society, they expect an 
equivalent for them ; but if they require not to con- 



EQUALITY. 109 

sume all the value of their productions, from day to 
day, they ask society to give them a representative 
for their labor ; that is, they wish to have money. It 
matters not, therefore, whether the money be made of 
earthenware, gold, silver, copper, iron, or paper. The 
only thing necessary, is to always regulate the circu- 
lating medium by the amount of capital produced. It 
appears that paper possesses in itself the qualities, 
that it is the most portable, most easy made, and 
will last sufficiently long, to cause it to be adopted 
as the money of the country. All money is to 
be issued by the nation ; each note marked one, five, 
ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred, each to represent the 
number of day's labor, as the respective notes are 
numbered. There is, then, no bank but one, and 
that the people's ; no person will be driven to bor- 
row money, because no individual can speculate 
with it. No issues of notes can take place at any 
other places than the national stores and workshops. 
There will be no usury, because, as all will have to 
labor, and to give equal values for equal values, in- 
terest will be unknown ! There cannot be any broken 
banks, because labor will never become bankrupt ! 
The nation cannot fail to itself! There can be no 
forgeries, no counterfeit notes, because as the reputa- 
tion of every man is known, and as all are expected 
to labor, the forger and counterfeiter would be easily 
detected ; all monies come direct from the national 
workshops, and are presented by the owner for goods, 
at them again for there is to be no employment 
except what is given by the nation ; therefore, the 
possibility of forging is entirely removed. The 
only reason why money will be at all wanted, is that 
individuals will wish to remove from one part of the 
United States to another, and this money, the repre- 

10* 



110 EQUALITY. 

sentative of so many day's labor, will enable its 
owner to obtain goods in any part of the Union. 

I have no objection to have gold and silver as the 
circulating medium, provided that the economists can 
furnish enough for the wants of society ,* but as it has 
already been proved, there cannot be near enough, 
the thing must be useless from the scantiness of the 
article. The reason why paper money has been such 
a curse, is that it has hitherto been used by the spe- 
culators and the bankers, to raise and fall the value 
of the productions of labor. It is, therefore, against 
the evils of the paper system that I wage hostility, 
and not against bank notes themselves. Paper money, 
like machinery, may, and can, and will be ultimately 
used to benefit the proletarian, instead of to injure 
him, as it does now. All the notes issued will have 
the best kind of security for their redemption, viz. the 
whole amount of capital deposited in the national 
warehouses. There can be only as many notes 
issued as there are number of day's labor deposited, 
and whenever any of this wealth is drawn from the 
warehouse, the notes for its value are presented, thus 
always making the supply and the demand tally. In- 
trinsically, paper money is almost valueless, and now 
is only used through the conventionalities of society. 
Intrinsically, the precious metals are as valueless as 
paper, except where and when they may be used in 
the arts, or for medicinal purposes, and the same con- 
ventional usages have called them money. But is it 
not folly to waste so much time in digging for gold 
and silver, when those so employed might be engaged 
at more healthy occupations ? 

It will now be seen, that the issuing of bank notes, 
under the present system, is a scheming chain of 
transactions from beginning to end; that as the profit- 



EQUALITY. Ill 

mongers have the control of the currency, they either 
make money scarce or plenty, as it best answers 
their villainous purposes; and the inevitable conse- 
quences of these expansions and contractions, are to 
make merchandise of the very heart's blood of the 
producing classes ; to retain them entirely, completely, 
and eternally bound, hand and foot, body and soul, to 
the torturing car of capital ! 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

EQUAL EXCHANGES. 

I have thus far traced the social and political in- 
equalities which I witness before, behind, and around 
me. The two primary steps to be taken in the esta- 
blishment of a better system than the present, I have 
shown to be the freedom of the soil of a country to 
all its citizens, and the formation of an equalizing 
system of money. I now intend to demonstrate how 
the laborer shall secure to himself the full value of 
all his productions. 

The nation must become the employer as well as 
it has become the landholder, and the banker. — 
Therefore, all the railways, canals, schools, colleges, 
towns, halls, mines, fisheries, shipping, et cetera, 
belong to the Commonwealth, not only as a matter of 
right, but as a matter of prudence, to prevent the re- 
motest approach to monopoly by individuals. A 
central national workshop and warehouse, with 
branches in each two miles square, built upon the 
most approved principles, will be established, in which 
are deposited all kinds of goods, raw and fabricated. 



112 EQUALITY. 

Distributors of wealth are annually chosen by the 
people, to superintend these warehouses and work- 
shops. The labor of one man will be considered of 
the same value as the labor of another man, neither 
more nor less. A shoemaker's as a hatter's, a hod 
carrier's as a judge's, an agriculturist's as a senator's. 
This will prevent favoritism, or aristocracy in trades, 
professions, or callings ; labor will be then no longer 
degraded, therefore, every man will labor. Then 
every additional improvement in machinery will be a 
blessing to the race 1 Our talents are as various as 
our countenances ; for, inasmuch as the Creator has 
endowed one man with a capacity to become eminent 
in mechanics, a second in chemistry, a third in lan- 
guage, a fourth in legislation^ fifth in sculpture, a sixth 
in poetry, a seventh in handicraft, an eighth in agri- 
culture ; so has he made the whole of society to 
depend upon each of its members, and each to rely 
upon all, and the more industry and virtue exhibited 
by any people, the more happy must that people be- 
come ! It will be recollected that in the chapter upon 
education, that I there stated, that attached to each 
school are workshops, suited to the ages and the dis- 
positions of the people. One developes a taste for 
one branch of business, another for another, and that 
before they leave school, each understands thoroughly 
one, two, or three trades. Each would clearly see 
that he must labor to be independent, and that to be 
independent, he must labor. Man is not naturally 
prone to idleness; he is not naturally lazy! Labor 
is necessary to health, and as labor is no longer de- 
graded, all will willingly and cheerfully labor. More- 
over, as the improvements in machinery will be used 
to shorten human labor, the period of two hours per 
day will be quite long enough for any person to labor, 



EQUALITY. 113 

to procure for himself all the necessaries and comforts 
of life ! 

The national stores are now being established, and 
the query naturally arises, how are exchanges to be 
made ? how can there be a just estimate of the value 
of each man's labor? how is a day, or a number of 
day's labor to be represented ? These questions are 
easily answered — simply by legal enactment. I have 
already demonstrated, that gold and silver have no 
intrinsic value in themselves, farther than as far as 
they may be necessary to be used in the arts, and in 
medicine. Therefore, the labor expended in the 
mining, and in the other manufacture of them, is so 
much valuable time and labor expended for no earthly 
good whatever. The way to arrange a system of 
equal values in exchange for equal values, or how to 
remunerate each trade alike, will be after the follow- 
ing manner : 

Every article of production to be valued by the 
number of day's labor expended in its manufacture. 
Each trade, profession, or calling, will have to an- 
nually report to the legislature, the number of days 
necessary to produce a given article — always taking 
care to select good mechanics and fair workmen. 
Thus, the agriculturist will be one day making a 
bushel of wheat, a miller, a day grinding a ton of 
meal, a weaver a day weaving a piece of cloth, a 
shoemaker a day making a pair of shoes, a hatter a 
day making a hat. The average being thus ascer- 
tained, government will then affix the rates of wages 
for the current year. It would make no difference, 
except as to the greater quantity ; thus, if a carpenter 
has to work one hundred days at a house, he is still 
paid his full equivalent in proportion to the length of 
time he labors. There is a particular portion of this 



1 14 EQUALITY. 

theory to be particularly remembered by every work- 
ing man. That the whole of society rests upon the 
working man's shoulders : thus, if there are twenty 
millions of people in a country, and that five millions 
of them are engaged at productive labor ; suppose 
those five millions are at work during the year one 
thousand eight hundred and forty-eight, each person 
supports three and himself; but suppose that in the 
next year, the population remaining the same, that 
one million of the five retire from labor, or become 
capitalists, and speculators, there are but four millions 
of producers then ; then each has to maintain* four 
persons and himself. Let another million again be- 
come capitalists, the following year, and there will be 
then six persons quartered upon each laborer ! The 
really useful classes have to support every other 
class : thus, if a man is engaged in the manufacture 
of razors warranted not to shave, of knives warranted 
not to cut, of shoes warranted to leak the first time 
used, of prints warranted to fade the first time washed, 
all the individuals engaged in this scheming labor, 
consume food, clothing, and houses, and are, there- 
fore, kept by those who produce these last named ar- 
ticles. But under a system of equal values for equal 
values, none of the above useless commodities would 
be produced, because by the nation becoming the 
general employer, no goods will be taken into the 
warehouses, except those which are well made. All 
persons engaged at labor, know before hand the amount 
the articles they are producing will bring ; they know 
that they must make the goods perfect, and that then 
they will be paid the legal price, neither more nor 
less. In the purchase of goods no man can be 
cheated, as the store can only have one price, there- 
fore, each person knows that he cannot be shaved of 



EQUALITY. 115 

even the value of a cent ! Here, then, is the beauty 
of the system : that all men must labor ; that all 
must labor usefully ; that all labor will be equally 
rewarded ! Thus verifying the'beautiful principle of 
St. Paul, that " he that does not work neither shall 
he eat." 

I am well aware that there will be all kinds of 
objections and objectors to such a system. Every 
possible device of the idle, of the scheming, and of 
the swindling classes, will be set in motion to thwart, 
to counteract, to prevent the accomplishment of such 
a system. The bankers and the brokers, the hoary 
headed Senator, and the learned judge, the crafty 
lawyer and the skilful surgeon, the princely merchant 
and the sanctimonious clergyman, the criticising 
editor and the pompous actor, the army general and 
the naval commodore, the southern slaveholder and 
the western land shark, the eastern millionaire and the 
northern manufacturer, the grasping speculator and 
the remorseless monopolist, with their whole train of 
greedy dupes, will wage a common and united war 
against the introduction of such a system of justice, 
of equality, of fraternity ! The advocates of this 
system will be maligned, vilified, and calumniated. 
False reports of their morality, of their honesty, and 
of their religion, will be most assiduously circulated. 
Money, time, and perverted talents, will be not spared, 
to ruin them in public estimation ! The mildest names 
applied to them, will be fools and fanatics; but if 
ridicule will not silence them, or arrest the onward 
progress of their principles, then will they be de- 
nounced as infidels, anarchists, as terrorists and 
levellers, as destructives, and Robespierrians ; and 
should their doctrines still continue to make headway, 
then it is'that the whole strength of the accursed land 



116 EQUALITY. 

and moneyed lords, will be put forth to exterminate, 
by brute force, these truly great and good men, who 
would wish to disenthral the working man from his 
bondage and degradation. I am ready and willing 
to admit, that there are some few honorable excep- 
tions among the classes above enumerated, but sorry 
I am, that they are so few — so very few ! 

" God did not make this world for landlords and 
capitalists, much less did He give them a charter for 
sacrificing the human race to their rapacity ! If it 
were only to save their souls from perdition, (if such 
devils can have souls,) a termination ought to be put 
to their hellish aggressions on humanity ! They have 
already made the life of man more miserable than 
that of any criminal, brute, or reptile in creation ! 
This world, which but for them might be a paradise 
of virtue and delight, they have made a pandemonium 
of crime and wretchedness; arraying man against 
man, and brother against brother, and setting the 
nations of the earth to slaughter each other like fiends 
or beasts of prey, as though the God they pretend to 
worship, were a God of massacres, and the human 
race were only made to subserve their lusts, their 
avarice, and their base passions ! Landlords and 
capitalists, beware ! The laboring classes are willing 
to forget your past oppressions and impostures — tempt 
them not too far ; like the Being they worship, they 
prefer mercy to sacrifice, and even now (after all the 
miseries you have inflicted on them,) are more willing 
to pardon your crimes than you are to pardon their 
virtues; but lay not the flattering unction to your 
souls, that it will be always as easy to make terms 
with them as it is now! A day may come *hen 
their forbearance may turn to the phrenzy of despair, 
and when the tempest of revolution shall sweep away 






EQUALITY. 117 



all that is flexible and enduring in their natures ! It 
is for you, capitalists and landlords, to avert that day, 
by timely concession ! If you do, the millions, who 
are always generous, will merge the past in the 
future ! If you do not, you will be answerable before 
God and man, for all the consequences !" 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
equal exchanges. — (Continited.) 

The most feasible objection which can be made in 
opposition to this theory is, that it is too complicated, 
and therefore, impracticable. This is always the 
case whenever any thing is propounded which has for 
its object the elevation of the laborer. Despots and 
their tools, always raise this cry ; but let me ask the 
hand loom weaver, who is receiving the paltry sum 
of three dollars for a week's wages, or the agricul- 
turist, who is receiving two and a half, or the sailor, 
or soldier, who gets twenty-five cents a day, for the 
privilege of being shot at, whether or not a change 
might not be deemed practical for them. 

Again, it is stated, " that it will destroy energy, 
and talent, and genius" — that is not true ! and those 
who make the assertion, do so under the most perfect 
conviction of its falsehood ! If they did so through 
ignorance they might be forgiven ; but as they do not 
do it in any other way, and for any other purpose, 
than to prevent a change for the benefit of the work- 
ing man being consummated, they are doubly guilty ! 
Under a system of equal exchanges, instead of talent 
being repressed^ it would be developed in a thousand 

11 



118 EQUALITY. 

times a greater degree than under existing circum- 
stances. The reasons are obvious — with the present 
social arrangements, the mass have no time for study, 
for education ; the whole struggle of life is for a mere 
animal subsistence ! How can any man study after 
a day's long, and hard, and incessant toil ? I speak 
of myself, and for myself, in this case; the ideas I 
have here arranged, I have long entertained. I often 
thought to write a book of this nature; but was 
hitherto deterred, from the fact of my time being too 
much occupied to obtain a bare subsistence ; and this 
book, with all its imperfections, has been the result of 
hours upon hours of my usual rest abstracted : were 
a system of equal values for equal values, in operation, 
it could be written in a couple of weeks ! Two hours 
per day, would be a maximum for a day's labor ! The 
steam plough, and iron horse, would then work for 
all. Human labor would be greatly abridged from 
what it is at present. When men were certain that 
this small portion of time would be sufficient to procure 
all the necessaries and comforts of life, this very labor 
being necessary for, and keeping the human system 
in health, would they not devote their surplus leisure 
hours to the improvement of their minds? As all had 
received a sound, practical education at school, the 
foundation had been laid for further and greater, nay, 
for the greatest improvement. In a state of society 
where all are carefully educated, and where all have 
time and means to study, what might not be the state 
of knowledge : political economy, history, chemistry, 
mathematics, mechanics, would be within the reach 
of all, and where the world has hitherto produced one 
Franklin, one Newton, one JefTerson, one Rousseau, 
one Shakspeare, one Fulton, one Arkwright, one 
Faustus, it would, henceforward, produce thousands 






EQUALITY. 119 

of such men ; so that instead of talents being re- 
pressed, they would be called forth ! 

How is it at present, that factitious circumstances 
favor the wealthy classes, who possess all the educa- 
tion to themselves, or whenever an unusual degree of 
talent is/manifested by a working man, he is taken 
into the ranks of the oppressors, unless he is too 
honest and philanthropic, and then his whole life is 
one of daily martyrdom. This monopoly of know- 
ledge can never be destroyed, only by extensively 
diffusing that knowledge, and* that knowledge can 
never be thoroughly, and extensively, and perma- 
nently diffused only under a system of equal ex- 
changes. Destroy energy and talent, forsooth, and 
level all men to one standard ! If there is to be level- 
ling, it will be upwards and not downwards ; it will 
be the elevation of all instead of the degradation of 
any ! As two hours will be a maximum for a day's 
labor, those who are anxious to hoard, can do so by 
performing more labor, and the man who chooses to 
work twelve hours per day, can save as much by one 
year's labor as will maintain him for the space of five 
other years. This wealth he can command when- 
ever he desires it. But he cannot use his wealth to 
abstract from any other individual, the shadow of a 
shade of a cent, in the shape of profit ! Indeed, 
under the system of equal exchanges, there cannot 
be any other employer than the nation, and for the 
following reasons : As the legal value is affixed for 
the labor expended upon the production of all articles 
of produce, and as the producer cannot receive more 
nor less than that legal value, it is clear, that he will 
labor for no person who will not render him an honest 
equivalent for his toil, and this no private employer 
can pay ; because, if he employs workmen, he must 



120 EQUALITY. 

pay them more than the nation will pay, and after he 
has obtained their productions, he must take them to 
the national warehouses, for sale, where he will only 
receive for them their fair value ; by this operation 
he becomes a loser ; and it is to be presumed, that 
few if any will attempt the foolish experiment : in 
addition, the independence which would be the lot of 
every man, the sound, practical knowledge possessed 
by each man, would effectually debar even an ap- 
proximation to a system of wages slavery, and de- 
basement ! As the new improvements in machinery 
would be introduced, it would be for the general good 
of all, because it would shorten human labor in the 
aggregate ! 

I have reasoned thus upon the domestic produc- 
tions of our citizens ; I now proceed to show, that 
our foreign commerce could be safely conducted upon 
equitable principles. Teas, coffees, and other articles 
of consumption, are required by our people. Now, 
it is not to be supposed that the foreigner will send us 
his produce for nothing. How is our government to 
act? simply to exchange equal values for equal 
values. Look at its effects : a famine visits one or 
more of the countries of the world, the inhabitants 
of which are plunged in the greatest destitution. Do 
we take advantage of this hunger, as the speculators 
have done, to raise the prices of provisions to an un- 
just standard ? Do we raise the price of flour to ten 
dollars per barrel ? we do no such thing ; we send 
them flour at the cost of its production and transit ; 
we send them millions of barrels of it at first cost, 
because the nation regulates all the transactions of 
trade ! Their flour, on delivery, would not cost them 
more than five dollars per barrel. By the United 
States acting thus, they would astonish the world; 






EQUALITY. 121 

and as like begets like, the nations of Europe, having 
this country before their eyes, as an example of jus- 
tice and equality, would endeavor to imitate us, and 
throw off the oppressive yoke of those classes, whose 
aim and interest it is to keep them in chains and 
slavery ! For it is a fact, that the despots of Europe 
and their minions, always chuckle at, and triumph 
forth every act of folly committed by this Republic, 
and it is also a fact, that the degraded and down- 
trodden masses look to America as a beacon of light, 
to guide them in their struggles for freedom. 

I have proved that a circulating medium of paper 
would answer all the internal exchanges among our- 
selves ; but as other countries might still continue to 
be guided in their mercantile transactions with us, by 
the precious metals, we would be compelled, in that 
case, to regulate our commerce with them upon 
similar principles. The goods we send, where a 
balance of trade could not be arranged, we would 
have to receive gold and silver, and when they sent 
us goods the circumstance would be simply reversed ; 
the government would place the amount of money 
received in their vaults, and pay it out again as cir- 
cumstances would warrant. By the establishment of 
this system, all the nations of the earth would at no 
remote period be united in one vast brotherhood of 
mutual interests and friendship ; national differences 
would be amicably settled; the golden age would 
again revisit the earth; war would be known no 
more, and the beautiful maxim would become gene- 
rally and permanently established all over the earth, 
viz. " peace upon earth, and good will to men." 



11 



122 EQUALITY. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

GENERAL REFLECTIONS. 

I have here rudely thrown together the outlines 
of a system which will yet, in a more perfect form, 
have to be adopted by the whole family of man. This 
theory I by no means consider complete in all its 
parts. 1 am anxious to have it subjected to the most 
careful examination. I leave the hackneyed expres- 
sion aside, " that all the writer aims at is truth ;" if 
this theory be the true one, it will ultimately succeed, 
if not, it will perish ! There is one thing to be said, 
and that is, that I have been extremely careful in my 
quotations and statistics, always endeavoring to the 
utmost of my ability, to fairly convey the meaning 
of my author. The time has, indeed, arrived when 
we ought to endeavor to perfect the great work un- 
consummated by the French Revolution of seventeen 
hundred and ninety-three. Revolutions have followed 
revolutions ; changes of government have again and 
again been made ; dynasty has overthrown dynasty ; 
religions have succeeded religions ; patriarchal, aris- 
tocratical, despotic, monarchical, feudal, and com- 
mercial systems, have each, in their turn, held sway 
over the world; empires have passed away until 
hardly a vestige of them remains. 

" Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage ; where are they ?" 

Conquerors, at different times, have made the globe 
one vast scene of slaughter and desolation. But 
through all the phases of these events, there were no 
practical attempts made to elevate the proletarians in 
the scale of human improvement and happiness, until 



EQUALITY. 123 

that most eventful of all eventful epochs, the French 
Revolution ! The oppressors of mankind, prior to 
that grand and sublime era, never dreamt that the 
working man would dare, for a moment, to assume 
his proper position in the scale of civilization. The 
mass of mankind, until then, were denominated and 
treated as helots and serfs, as plebeians and slaves, as 
ryots and peasantry, as boors and canaille, as mob 
and rabble ! This system of things could not endure 
forever. The immortal mind of the benevolent Rous- 
seau, shed its illumining influence over the souls of 
the French people, and like lightning, it touched the 
extremest portions of France. Then it was, that the 
French nation, as one man, arose in its might to 
shake off the manacles of tyranny ! Equality be- 
came the watchword of the French Republicans ; a 
word which caused the sceptres, and hierarchies, and 
dynasties, and the blood-cemented thrones of land- 
lordism and usury to quail and tremble! Then it 
was, that the whole of the monarchical despots of 
Europe banded together, like brigands, as they were, 
and are, to strangle the doctrines of the equality of 
mankind, and to butcher honest French Republicans ! 
The following stanzas, selected from one of the 
songs of that day, will illustrate this assertion. 

When France, wearied out with the bonds of oppression, 

Thought fit to decree that proud Louis should fail ; 
Denying the pope's and the clergy's possession, 

Then Europe against her declared, one and all. 
Vengeance, vengeance, terrible vengeance ! 

Threatened to ruin fair liberty's sons: 
Kings, statesmen, and clergy, with all their energy, 

Directed against them their prayers and their guns. 

The emperor, the pope, and the great king of Prussia, 
These three, in alliance, conspired her doom ; 



124 EQUALITY. 

The Spanish, the Dutch, and the empress of Russia, 
With Piedmont, and Naples, the servants of Rome. 

«And England, England — foolish, vain England, 
Never took rest till she entered the league, 

Expecting the laurel for joining the quarrel ; 
This also involved poor Sawney and Teague. 

Why did this conspiracy take place ? because the 
French Republicans had laid the axe to the tree of 
monopoly, and were bent upon cutting it to the very 
root ! They had determined upon having a social as 
well as a political revolution. They had resolved to 
establish a system of equal exchanges. They pre- 
ferred the producer, the useful man, the proletarian, 
to the idler, the aristocrat, or the king. For these 
reasons did the banditti of Europe unite to destroy 
the revolution, and to murder the stern patriots who 
were directing it. For these monsters well knew, 
that if the revolution could be perfected, the death 
knell of their tyrannic sway was tolled forever ! This 
was the secret of bloody Brunswick's manifesto in 
favor of the perfidious Louis. Does any one imagine 
that the aristocratical brigands of Europe cared for 
the life of the Capet ? No — but they cared for their 
own power of plundering the people ; that power they 
were resolved to uphold under the plausible pretext 
of rendering assistance to the king. They dreaded 
that the revolution might be turned to the cause of 
humanity, and they resolved not to permit it. The 
successful prowess of the French armies, struck con- 
sternation into the ranks of their opponents. When, 
therefore, the land and moneyed lords saw the success 
of their schemes frustrated openly,, they set to work 
in private, and by despatching their emissaries through 
France, they set internal treason in motion, and they 
ceased not in their machinations until they arrested 



EQUALITY. 125 

the current of equality, and murdered those pure and 
consistent patriots who advocated the rights of man- 
kind ! Robespierre, and his virtuous copatriots, were 
ruthlessly sacrificed by these miscreants, because he 
endeavored to turn the revolution to the account of 
humanity — to the benefit of mankind ; in fact, it was 
the intention of him and his coadjutors to establish a 
just order of things in France ; to make the laborer 
worthy of his hire ; to allow no drones in the social 
hive : for endeavoring to achieve so great, so benign, 
and so hazardous an undertaking, the landlords and 
usurers of France, aided by their foreign brethren in 
iniquity, murdered him as well as St. Just and others ; 
and not only did they do that, but by their infamous 
lies and slanders, they have blasted his character, 
until now the mass of mankind, in every country, 
look upon Robespierre as one of the most infamous 
monsters that ever disgraced the human species ! 
Whereas, the facts of the case are vice versa. 

It is evident to every honest mind, that the present 
system is radically wrong. No person will attempt 
to justify it, except those who live upon its abuses. 
Opposition, bitter, hostile, and deadly to the principles 
advocated in this book, is a thing to be expected, as a 
matter of course. The reformer who imagines that 
a great social change can be accomplished without 
having to endure a fiery ordeal, will find himself 
greatly mistaken. — History proves the truth of this 
statement. 

I now conclude by quoting from the Democratic 
Review, the following remarks : " The history of all 
nations may be likened to the sponge used in surgical 
operations ; it looks clean and unsoiled to the careless 
eye, but grasp it firmly, and blood and matter ooze 



126 EQUALITY. 

out of it. If the disgust expressed by the aristocratic 
historians, at these acts of cruelties, under whatever 
circumstances committed, by whatever specious pleas 
of necessity justified, or extenuated, were sincere, 
they would surely find the same inspirations of vitu- 
perative eloquence upon all other occasions ; not so, 
however — their tears of hypocritical sorrow fall only 
when noble blood has been made to flow ; not a sigh, 
not a word of sympathy, when thousands of low born 
victims are trodden beneath the iron heels of the war 
horse, under the pretence to curb the madness ttf 
popular aspirations! Had royalty and aristocracy, 
triumphed in France, and decimated the whole guilty 
nation, (it was so termed,) we should have lost the 
eloquent declamations of Burke, and the whole race 
of aristocratic declaimers and poets, would have re- 
mained unpensioned, untitled, and as unknown to 
their contemporaries as they will certainly be to pos- 
terity !" 

I have now imperfectly concluded my task, and all 
I request is, that it may be read with the desire to ac- 
quire knowledge, for the purpose of erecting a better 
system of society than is to be found in any part of 
the world at the present time. 



Note. — As I had not the following table by me 
when I wrote the chapter upon trades unions, I insert 
it here, believing that it will be of the greatest utility 
to point out to the trades the utter hopelessness of 
bettering their condition permanently, by any other 



EQUALITY. 127 

means than the principles laid down in this book, or 
a complete reorganization of society. 

. Witness the amount of money lost in the following 
strikes in England. 

Cotton spinners of Manchester, in 1810, £224,000 

Again in 1826, 200,000 

Since that time, 176,000 

Spinners of Preston, '74,313 

Town of Preston, 107,096 

Glpsgow cotton spinners, 47,600 

City of Glasgow, 200,000 

Loss to County of Lanarkshire, - - ■ - 500,000 

Strike in the potteries, 50,000 

Leeds mechanics' strike, twelve months, - 187,000 
Wool Combers of Bradford, ten months, - 400,000 
Colliers' strike, 50,000 

Total, £2,216,009 



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